


Fae Date

by Liv Campbell (perdikitti), William Alexander (zannyvix)



Series: Faerie Gifts [1]
Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs, Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Ambush, Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Awkward, Cute, Fae & Fairies, First Meetings, Flirting, Gay Male Character, Gay Sex, Injury Recovery, Lone Wolf, M/M, Recovery, Werewolves, character angst, gay relationship, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 09:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5042518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perdikitti/pseuds/Liv%20Campbell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zannyvix/pseuds/William%20Alexander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Willoughby is a gay lone wolf living on the Bluegrass Pack's turf near Lexington, Kentucky. It's a lonely existence, fraught with danger given how little tolerance most werewolves have for non-heterosexual members of their kind. Sam expects to live out his days in quiet exile... until a chance remodel job at one of the local race tracks brings him into contact with a gorgeous young man who's not only too pretty to be true, he's too pretty to be human, and he's interested. So is Sam. A number of local pack members are much less enthused and decide to do something about it. Chaos ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> We do not own anything in Patricia Briggs' universe. We just enjoy playing in it. 
> 
> For the record, I prefer to write things that interweave with the existing canon, while disrupting the original world as little as possible. I want the stories and characters to feel as if they could be part of the same world, but playing out in different locations at the same time, before, or after events we see happen in the books and short stories. The folks I write with have similar aspirations. Canon characters may make appearances or be referenced, but our stories are primarily of other wolves and other packs. They're dealing with the same strictures and difficulties that the canon characters have dealt with, just in their own ways. For reference, this takes place roughly five years before the events in Moon Called.
> 
> Many thanks to Perdikitti, who writes with me, who helped hash out a large swath of the plot for this piece, who was responsible for bringing Rob, Owen, and Alec to life, and whose editing help is invaluable. =)

The first time I saw Rob, I was a wolf.

I thought at first that he was a wolf, too, but then the shadows shifted and showed me a man instead. He wasn’t like any man I’d ever seen around here. He was beautiful and young with dark curling hair. He smelled like forest and river, and didn’t have a stitch of clothing on. I should have left then, but sue me, I was lonely and it ain’t often a guy like me gets an eyeful like that.

Twelve years I’d been running as a lone wolf, carefully avoiding the local pack’s hunts. That’s quite a long time to run alone, but they wouldn’t have me, no way no how. Werewolves are intolerant bastards at the best of times, and mostly male. There was no place for a gay man in their ranks. I make no apologies for who and what I am. It is what it is, and I’d been dealing with it a long time by my reckoning, staying away from the pack except when I didn’t have a choice.

So I should have realized something was up when the stranger winked at me and melted back into the underbrush. Human men don’t run naked in the woods near Lexington, not when it’s this cold. At least, nobody’d do it by choice, and they don’t wink at beasts too large to be mistaken for anything but monsters even when we wore dog collars.

The man I saw wasn’t a wolf, not really. If he’d been pack, he would have attacked me. I’d had it happen before if I got too close. Usually the Alpha would get ’em to stop before they chewed me up too badly, but that was the best I could hope for. The Alpha felt a little guilty about my situation, I guess, since one of his wolves Changed me, but the pack wouldn’t accept a gay wolf. This stranger, though, he didn’t smell like a werewolf and he didn’t come after me. I didn’t know what that meant until I took a contract job from a local interior designer installing new woodwork in one of the bars down at one of the local horse tracks.

I’d mostly forgotten about the strange encounter in the woods. While I suspected whomever I’d encountered hadn’t been fully human, I steered clear of the supernatural as a general rule, and that applied to anything odd. I’m plenty strong, but there are lots of things that’d look at a werewolf without a pack’s protection as easy prey. I lived at their sufferance, so I tried to keep my head down much as I could.

So when I spotted the lithe bartender with his dark hair curling just so, and those blue eyes like the sky overhead at twilight, I knew I was in trouble. He had on a black polo shirt and khaki slacks cut to show off his legs, and he moved like a ballet dancer when he glided down the bar toward me. The little plastic tag pinned to his shirt said Rob, and I felt my heart stutter just a bit when he smiled at me.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he purred. “Care for a drink? We’ve all manner of moonshine to suit your fancy.”

I dropped my eyes from his almost immediately, which my wolf informed me was a mistake, but I was flustered. Kentucky doesn’t have much of an open gay community, and I wasn’t used to other men flirting with me outright.

“Ahh, no, thanks,” I returned hastily. “I don’t drink on the job.” I hefted my tool bag for emphasis. Callie hadn’t given me measurements when I signed on for the project, and I preferred to get them myself anyway.

His sky blue eyes twinkled. “You can’t work all the time.”

“N-no, sir,” I stammered, annoyed at myself for letting him get to me. “But I’m working today.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Umm.” I hadn’t been so out of my depth since high school when I first realized I’d been spending more time staring at the football players than the cheerleaders, and what that meant. “I should probably get to work,” I said, fumbling in my tool bag for a tape measure.

“Of course.” The bartender stepped back with a crooked smile that made my heart skip a beat. Bartenders shouldn’t be this cute. I was positive my face was beet red when I turned away.

I wasn’t running. I was a werewolf, an apex predator. We don’t run from things. That had been one of the first lessons pounded into my head while I was still brand new and confused. The pack had made sure I knew the rules and could control the wolf before they tossed me out on my own. They’d done that much for me. So I wasn’t running away when I calmly crossed the room to the far end where the designer wanted to start remodeling. I was just getting down to business.

Callie had told me the owners were looking to modernize this bar by tearing out all the heavy old trim and replacing it with lighter woods to brighten things up. I kept my opinions on the new look to myself, since it was just my job to do the work, and not to comment on people’s taste or lack thereof. I set to work getting the measurements I needed. The amount of labor necessary was going to require at least a three man crew, but I knew a couple of guys I could bring in as subcontractors. I managed to immerse myself in my business almost enough to forget about the bartender’s charming dimples.

That worked real well until around lunch time. I was head and shoulders in a cabinet, taking fiddly measurements at the back, when I felt the heat of some stranger’s body coming up behind me. Werewolves don’t like having folk at their backs too much. I disliked it especially because I’d been jumped more than once. Being what I am also means taking additional care or risk breaking things. I can snap oak as easily as balsa wood if I don’t pay attention.

“Thought you might like some water.”

The bartender. Of course.

I forced myself to count to five, slowly, before I put down my tape measure and backed out of the cabinet. I’m not a small guy, and becoming a werewolf had only made me more conscious of my size and strength. When I got to my feet, I stood at least a couple inches taller than Rob the bartender. He gazed up at me, that dazzling grin taking the heat right out of my wolf’s objections over the prolonged eye contact. Good god, the man was beautiful, and he knew it. He held a water bottle in one hand, and waggled it at me.

“’Preciate it,” I rasped. Suddenly my mouth had gone awful dry. His grin widened, and the dimples were back in force. I didn’t know whether he was doing it on purpose, just to get to me, or if he flirted with everyone. Some folks are just like that.

“You’re very welcome.” He pressed the bottle into my hand. It wasn’t necessary, but I liked the warmth of his skin on mine well enough. “You’ve been here all day, and I don’t even know your name.”

“Ah, Sam. It’s Sam. Short for Samson, but nobody calls me that,” I babbled, and shut up before I managed to say something stupid.

“Samson?” Rob was light on his feet. He circled me quickly, his face canted up toward mine. “Do you keep all your strength in your hair?”

I ran a hand over my short cropped dark blond hair self consciously. “What? Um, no. Don’t think so.” Rob was an odd one, but then I’d seen him running around in the woods naked, hadn’t I? Or at least someone so like him it could have been a twin brother. We didn’t get a lot of streakers out where I’d been. Too far from the university.

“I was just wondering. Isn’t that the trick the Samson in the Bible pulled?” Rob flashed another grin. I was starting to wonder where he kept them and if he had a license, they were that dangerous. I needed to get out more. A bartender shouldn’t get me this way. “And you did have so much more hair when last we met.”

I blinked at him. “Um, well, I ain’t been here before today,” I hedged. I’d seen him in the woods, and he’d seen my wolf, but my other half was all patchy colors and I always wore a collar when I had to shift. Most folk just mistook me for a big dog if they happened to catch a glimpse. A really big dog. I was careful not to get too close and let them realize a near-three hundred pound wolf’s closer to pony sized than dog sized.

“Not here.” Rob tilted his head to one side. It was almost wolf-like, but there was something a little off about the gesture to mark him as one of us. It strengthened my feeling that the person I’d seen, the person standing in front of me, wasn’t human, or at least not fully. “You were out hunting.”

“I don’t hunt much,” I demurred. “Just go out with my coonhound now and then.”

His smile was gracious and a little too coy. It made the little hairs on the back of my neck join other parts of my body in standing up on end. “Perhaps it was another that I saw in the woods.”

“Um, maybe so.” My memories of that night were plenty clear, which was why I held my tool belt firmly at waist level. Rob grinned at me again and sauntered back to the bar. It was a very nice saunter. Would have been a shame not to admire it. I gave myself a shake and cracked open the water bottle. If he was going to be like this every day of this remodel job, I didn’t know if I’d survive it.

His comments about hunting struck a little too close to the mark for comfort. I might not be pack, but werewolves were secret. If I jeopardized that, I was as good as dead. Better to concentrate on the job, since Rob seemed to have accepted my answers for now. I finished the water bottle in one long pull, and set it aside so I could get back to my measurements. I should have stopped to eat, jittery as I was, but mostly I wanted to do my work and get out of there as quickly as possible.

 

 


	2. Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A still-disconcerted Sam gets home to discover he has an unexpected guest and a lecture waiting for him.

My front door was unlocked when I got home, and that’s not how I leave things. I’ve had an experience or two with folk breaking in, and it’d never been a good one. Some folks around here, they’re more trusting than me and my wolf can afford. I pushed the door open on silent hinges and paused to take a breath. The scent that reached me over the smell of frying chicken was a familiar one. Owen.

Owen is a lot of things to me. I had been doing work on his property when another wolf from the pack attacked and Changed me. Owen found me and took me to his Alpha. Owen is my lifeline to the pack. He’s part mentor and part parole officer, and really, really confusing.

When I stepped into my house, I found him bustling about my kitchen making dinner, and wearing an ensemble that would have done Lucille Ball proud, skirts and all. Owen’s pumps did lovely things for his legs. I paused for a moment, and then shut the door behind me. Owen is beautiful in his own way, but he wears dresses because he’s eccentric, not because he swings my way. My coonhound Rosie followed him, tail wagging happily in hope of snitching a bite of whatever was cooking.

He smiled when he saw me, but he didn’t lower his eyes. That didn’t make my wolf happy. Owen wasn’t as dominant as me, but he had standing. He was pack, the Alpha’s friend, and I was neither. I sat down at the scarred kitchen table rather than fuss over who was in charge. If I made trouble, the pack could run me off their turf, and then I’d really be a lone wolf.

“I’m frying a chicken,” he said. It was right there in my grandmother’s cast iron skillet. “A second chicken.” Owen paused, the ruffled skirts swirling around his legs. “Your dog has terrible table manners.”

Poor first chicken. No wonder Rosie was so happy.

“Thanks,” I offered back, ignoring the comment about my dog. Rosie’d been good companionship in what would otherwise have been long, lonely years.

“There are potatoes in the oven, and green beans. Wash up before you get sawdust all over.”

Owen dresses like my dear departed mother. Sometimes he sounds like her, too. I didn’t argue, just got up and made my way to the sink. “No sawdust today. Just getting measurements for a new remodel job,” I said as I passed him by.

I felt his gaze on the back of my neck. I was close enough to smell the faint hint of perfume he wore. It was something expensive from some boutique or the other, and it didn’t hurt my nose. There’re downsides to being a werewolf. The formaldehyde folks bathe themselves in is one of them. Body sprays might smell nice to a human, but they’re a chemical hell to a wolf.

“And where is this job?”

“Down at one of the horse tracks,” I replied. “They want to redo all the trim and some of the storage in one of the bars, and the designer brought me in to do it.” I didn’t mention the handsome bartender. Owen wouldn’t want to know about that anyway.

“The Red Mile?”

I was in Lexington. Louisville might be the home of the Kentucky Derby, but here you couldn’t go a block in some parts of town without tripping over this horse club or the other. There’re tracks all over the place. I wasn’t sure how he knew which one I was working out of.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” I said.

Owen sighed, smoothing the lace-edged apron. “You would wander into that one. Of course you would.”

I dried my hands on a towel hanging from the silverware drawer’s handle. “Beg pardon?” I asked, frowning. There are still nuances of werewolf culture I just don’t get, and not being part of the pack meant that wasn’t about to change any time soon.

“The fae own that one,” Owen said sharply. “Powerful fae, my dear boy. You’ve accepted a commission to repair a black widow’s web.”

His words made me freeze, a sick little frisson of fear in my gut. “I didn’t know,” I admitted. I’d been obliquely warned about not betting on the horses, but no one had outright forbidden me from going there. The fae presence did explain a few things, though, especially where Rob the bartender was concerned. He’d probably just been bored and trying to get a rise out of me.

“Offer no offense. Take no offered gifts. If you are given anything, even so much as an invitation, you are to clear any action you take with the Alpha,” Owen finally said. “You are ours, and they would do well to remember it.”

I wondered if that bottle of water counted. “Aside from Callie the designer, the only person who even talked to me all day was a bartender,” I admitted.

Owen took a deep breath. His flame red hair was longer than it had been the last time I’d seen him. He really did look like Lucy with it all curly and pinned up. “Either your designer is fae, or you’ve run across one of them. The fae smell like elements. You smell like you’ve been near a fresh brook all day.”

"That’s him," I confirmed. "Callie’s human. He reminded me of a river running through a forest. He didn’t do much more’n tease me, though."

“Be very careful, little wolf. I’ve invested time in you.” Owen patted my cheek with one soft hand. “I’d rather not lose a favorite playmate to the likes of our local fairies.”

"I don’t need to drop the contract?" I asked. If Owen told me to, I’d do it, though I could use the work. I made enough to get by, but not so much that I could afford to turn down jobs that came along willy nilly. Part of me also wanted to see that bartender again, even if he was fae.

Owen pursed artfully red lips. “You should be safe if you’re careful...now, have I given you the talk about using protection?” I sputtered. “An iron cross ought to do.”

"Right," I agreed. I had one somewhere. Wolves were very serious about their talismans, and I’d been warned multiple times about staying clear of the vampires in the area at least. The pack might not accept me, but they didn’t particularly want me dead, either. Well, most of them didn’t. “I’ll be careful,” I promised Owen.

“Good,” he replied, and made shooing motions toward the table with beautifully manicured hands. “Now go sit and we’ll eat. If I know you, you’ve forgotten again.”

“Might’ve,” I admitted, settling back into my usual seat at the table. Underneath the worn wooden surface, Rosie came over to put her head on my knee. I gave her ears an obliging scratch.

“You have to eat, Sammy dearest,” Owen sighed. “You’re past the ten year hump that trips up most young werewolves. You shouldn’t skip out on meals. You know it’s important.”

“I’ll remember,” I promised, rather than argue with Owen. He was the only person I’d let call me Sammy. I was fine. I’d _been_ fine, just a little ruffled by that bartender. I hadn’t eaten anyone. Hadn’t even snapped. Still, my stomach rumbled like a beast all on its own when he set a plate of food in front of me.

“Food helps with control, and control helps us survive,” he admonished with the usual litany, taking the seat across from mine. “I know it’s hard, but I’d rather you survived.”

“Sometimes I wonder why,” I murmured, but I ate. It was good, which didn’t surprise me in the least. Just about everything Owen did, he did well.

“Most animals are more controlled when they’re well fed,” Owen said, watching me eat. “Why should it be any different for werewolves?”

I swallowed a mouthful of potato. “Not that,” I said. “I get that. I mean me. Sometimes I wonder why y’all bother. Ain’t like the pack’s ever gonna accept me.” I shrugged. Sometimes it bothered me more than others. I was a pretty private person even before I’d been Changed, but my wolf craved the company of others. Rosie helped, as did Owen’s occasional visits, but it wasn’t the same as _belonging_. That, I could never have.

Owen leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “Things are changing.”

“Harder to see that from where I sit,” I told him, but I didn’t put any heat in the words. If it hadn’t happened in over a decade, it didn’t seem likely it was ever going to. There wasn’t much point in creating a fuss over it or letting things I couldn’t change make me morose. “It’s okay, Owen. I’ve dealt with it this long. I’ll get by.”

The red-headed wolf sighed, running his crimson-tipped nails through his artfully styled short curls. “There’s a pack. The Columbia Basin Pack. If the rumor mill has things right, their Alpha’s just taken a gay wolf into the pack ranks there.”

That made me sit up straighter, the chicken on my plate forgotten. Werewolves gossip like nobody else, but being outside the pack meant I was usually exempt from the rumor mill. “For real?” I asked. I had a hard time believing any Alpha could unbend that much.

“So I’ve heard,” Owen replied.

“Huh.” I chewed the inside of my cheek, considering the implications. “The Marrok allowed it?”

“Yes.”

I stayed quiet and thought real hard about that. Owen let me think. “That’s… Real interesting,” I finally allowed.

“How do you feel about Washington state?” Owen asked.

“Dunno.” I dropped my eyes back to my plate, my appetite gone. “I’ve lived here all my life. Ain’t any guarantee that Alpha would tolerate me just because he’s taken in another gay wolf. That’d be a pretty big risk to take.”

“Alec takes risks,” Owen said quietly.

I didn’t know the local Alpha very well. Owen was my contact, not him. The Alpha and I shared a surname, but that didn’t mean much as far as I knew. If he were some distant relation, I’d never heard of him before I became a werewolf. “Think he’d risk that much upset in the pack?” I murmured. I didn’t dare hope it might be true.

“I think so.”

If Owen was right, it could signal the end of my lonely existence, but even if Alec bucked tradition enough to make me pack, it wouldn’t be sunshine and roses. I had a pretty good idea which pack members had it in for me. We’d tangled before. If I was pack, I’d have to fight for a rank to keep myself safe, and there was a considerable chance I wouldn’t survive all the violence that was guaranteed to come my way.

“Think I’d rather wait and see, if it’s all the same to you,” I said. “If Alec wants me, y’all know where to find me.” It was as neutral as I could be under the circumstances. My wolf wanted the companionship of others like us with a longing that was almost physically painful at times, but the man knew what we’d be in for if that ever came about. I wasn’t about to push for acceptance now.

“All right.”

Owen reached across the table to pat my hand. It didn’t have the same connotations it might have for non-werewolves. He’d told me when I was new that wolves just touch each other more, a lot more than most red blooded super-macho American males normally would. For them, touch was comfort, reassurance, grounding. It was one of the reasons they had issues with me. Though I would never, ever, act on my feelings with someone who didn’t find me interesting in return, I couldn’t help _having_ those feelings in the first place.

Werewolves were, as a rule, young and fit. Hell, I’d been in my early thirties when I’d been attacked, but my physical age looked closer to twenty-five than my actual mid-forties. It was hard to be around so many charismatic, attractive, hardbodied young-looking men and not feel at least a little bit appreciative. The reaction’s involuntary, but since a werewolf can smell arousal and hear an elevated heartbeat, there’s no hiding it, either. They wouldn’t have cared if I were a woman, but I wasn’t. If it hadn’t been for Owen’s tolerance and guidance, I’d have left the area a long time before and tried my chances elsewhere. I still wasn’t sure how Owen, who was very much interested in women, got away with dressing like one. If there’s a bright, shining emblem of progress and change out there, you’d find it on the opposite side of the world from the wolves. It broke my brain sometimes trying to puzzle it out.

“Finish your dinner,” he told me. Owen fussed and clucked like a mother hen around me when the vast majority of the pack was happy to shun my presence. I’d never been clear on why, though I suspected it had something to do with the fact that I’d been working on contract for him at the time I’d been attacked. Werewolves tend to get pretty possessive of people they consider theirs. That, and finding the aftermath’d been enough to make me Owen’s, at least in his mind.

I didn’t argue, just went back to mechanically shoving food in my mouth. There was a lot to mull over, and I didn’t feel much inclined to talk about it. Owen wasn’t the sort to be needlessly cruel. He wouldn’t dangle the chance at belonging to the pack in front of me if it wasn’t a real possibility. Nothing was set in stone unless the Alpha made a move, though. Owen might be Alec’s friend, but he wasn’t that dominant in the grand scheme of things. He didn’t set policy for the pack, and hope was a dangerous emotion to allow myself.

We finished eating in companionable silence, and I got up to take the dishes to the sink once we were done. He’d cooked, so it was only fair I cleaned up. I heard his heels click across the old linoleum floor while I ran the water in the sink and added soap.

“Sammy,” Owen said, and put a hand on my shoulder. “Remember what I told you about the fae.”

“I’ll be careful,” I replied, repeating my promise. “Thanks for the warning. If it looks like things’re getting hairy, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Good.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze and stepped away. “Take care of yourself.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I will.” I focused my attention on the dishes at least until I heard Owen let himself out. Man. What a day. First a probably-fae bartender who was too pretty to be true spent the afternoon flirting with me, and then Owen had to drop the bombshell that I might one day get to be pack after all. It left me antsy and unsettled.

I finished with the dishes and stood back from the sink to dry my hands. At my feet, Rosie whined and looked up at me with a doggy grin, her whip tail thumping against my leg. I gave my pooch a faint smile and leaned down to scratch her ears.

When I straightened up, I opened the drawer on the far side of the sink and pulled out the worn leather collar and tags I’d had since my first Change. It was like the ones the other pack members had, but my tags featured Owen’s phone number rather than the Alpha’s. The name on the tag was Cookie, because somebody’d commented back when I’d been new that my wolf’s splotchy rust and dull yellow coloration with splashes of white here and there looked like cookie dough. It hadn’t been my preference, but I hadn’t been given a choice, either. The Marrok’s rules were that everyone wore the collar and tags, and the names had to be cute and non-threatening.

I ran my fingers over the leather, and then headed toward the back door. “C’mon, girl,” I told my dog. “Let’s go for a run.”

 

 


	3. Tear Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Work begins on the Red Mile remodel job, which turns out to mean Sam is also spending a lot of time around Rob the handsome bartender.

I spent the next couple of days going over my measurements and ordering the supplies necessary for the race track job. It meant several calls back and forth with Callie to make sure I got what the client wanted, in sufficient quantities. I’d learned to be careful about this kinda stuff over the years. Some people are fickle and prone to changing their minds frequently, and I didn’t want to end up with a load of planed lumber I was on the hook for because some ignoramus told me red maple and then decided they’d rather have Brazilian cherry instead.

Once that was taken care of, I set about finding a crew. Being a one-man contractor is fine for smaller jobs, but when you’ve got a bigger project you need bodies to get it done in time. Yeah, it means splitting some of the profits, but if you’re prompt about hitting deadlines and do good work, it can also mean repeat customers. I called around a handful of people I considered trustworthy and skilled enough for the sort of work we’d be doing. The first was busy with another job already, and the second was in the middle of a family emergency. Dying parent, his wife told me over the phone. I offered my condolences and moved on down the list.

José was young, but a hard worker with a good eye, and also available. I’d worked with him once or twice before. Terry, in contrast, was a stout, grizzled man maybe ten years older than my actual age. He wasn’t quick, but he was solid and dependable. Even better, they were both available for the slated period Callie had given me to get the work finished. We agreed on wages over the phone with minimal paperwork to be signed in person when we met at the job site. I had the appropriate forms in a file box in my shabby little home office.

I had a couple days before the materials showed up and the real work could begin, but me and my crew used that time to dismantle and remove all the old trim and cabinetry. The bar was closed officially as soon as we started ripping stuff off the walls, but for some reason Rob the bartender was always there anyway. He didn’t say anything to me the first day we worked, but he’d flash me one of those killer smiles any time he happened to catch my eye.

Still, he more or less let me be, at least until the new trim and boards arrived a few days later. I’d sent Terry off to get some lunch for us while José started cutting the first pieces to length on a chop saw set up outside where the sawdust would be easier to deal with. I’d elected to stay inside to finish the last bit of demo and prep work so we could start installing the new trim.

Rob’s forest and river scent wrapped around me when he drew close, though I was careful not to react visibly to his presence. I kept fiddling with my pry bar to loosen one last piece of stubborn moulding from a tricky corner. I didn’t want to damage the wall beneath it or leave gouges in the finish where they might be visible. It gave me something to concentrate on other than my hyper awareness of the fae man’s nearness. Once Owen had pointed it out to me, there was no doubt in my mind what Rob was.

“No lunch break today?” he purred.

I grunted, keeping my eyes on my task. There was one last nail to work loose, and this called for delicacy over brute strength. “I’ll eat when Terry comes back,” I said.

“Pity, I was hoping I could steal you away for lunch with me.”

His being a fae gave his words connotations that sent a chill down my spine. Owen’s warning rang alarm bells in my mind, but I was careful not to let my fear show. I stopped what I was doing and turned to face him. The pry bar in my hand was close enough to cold iron that it would do some damage if I had to use it as a weapon, and I had a cross of the same material tucked under my shirt. I really didn’t want to start anything here, though, especially if it would cause trouble up the line for Alec’s pack.

“Can’t,” I said, my voice neutral. Since we were alone, I added, “Alpha’s orders.” Rob had as much hinted that he knew what I was the last time he’d spoken to me, so I wasn’t giving him new information.

Rob cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowing just a little. “Interesting that,” he murmured. “I’ve never seen you run with the other wolves.”

He’d been watching me, then, and God only knew how long. I felt my expression fall away, my face going blank. “I’m still subject to his orders,” I said slowly, “even if I don’t run with the others.”

What Owen told me came from the Alpha, and I couldn’t afford to ignore it, even if Alec hadn’t been the one to deliver the orders himself. I wasn’t about to advertise that I didn’t belong to the pack, that they wouldn’t know and mostly wouldn’t care if I were hurt or went missing unless Owen thought to come looking for me. For the first time since I’d taken this job, it hit me just how vulnerable I was working here. Werewolves are tough and strong, but we ain’t infallible, and I didn’t have the protective threat of a pack’s retribution to discourage other powers from messing with me. The assumption that all wolves in an Alpha’s territory belonged to him kept me safe. Strip that away, and I was more or less fair game.

A capricious smile flitted across Rob the bartender’s face, there and gone before I could blink. “Then we’ll have to order in.”

I felt my face heat. “You know what I am,” I said quietly. “I know what you are, and I still got a job to do here. If you’re just tryin’ to mess with me for your own amusement, I’d rather know it up front. I don’t want any trouble.”

Rob cocked his head to one side in that almost not-quite wolflike gesture again. “I was under the impression that werewolves fall over if they don’t eat.”

“It ain’t quite that bad.” A faint smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. There was still danger here, but I found myself liking him in spite of it. It takes a lot of courage to face down a werewolf, even a lone wolf like me, and I’ve always been a sucker for a pretty face. “I sent one of my crew out for food.”

“Ah, of course.”

“Cuz you’re right, eating is important for werewolves, and I know better than to go without.” I hesitated, and then added, “Though if you wanna join us for the meal, you’re welcome to.” It was damn forward of me, but it hadn’t seemed like Rob had much else to do than hang around the bar and watch us work. Maybe he just liked the sight of sweaty men. Owen had told me not to accept any invitations, but he hadn’t said anything about offering one of my own.

“That’s very kind of you.”

I shrugged. “We’re gonna be at this for the next couple weeks at least. If you’re gonna be hanging around, ain’t no reason to be rude about it.” Plus it meant I got to covertly admire him. Have I mentioned being a lone wolf is pretty lonely business? From the smile I got, he knew I was looking and didn’t care one whit. He was a hard one to get a read on, and I should have known better than to hope for a straight answer from one of the fae. “So, we good?” I asked warily.

“That remains to be seen.” Rob the bartender grinned at me. Enigmatic bastard. If his butt hadn’t been so damn cute when he turned and sashayed away, I’d have been tempted to be grumpy at him.

I shook my head and went back to work.

 

 


	4. Lunch Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rob the bartender decides to up the ante by showing up with lunch.

The job progressed at a steady pace, my crew and I making good time on the remodeling work. Terry set up outside on a convenient patio with the chop saw and measurements to cut down our new trim, while José helped me install it in the bar. That kept the sawdust tracked in to a minimum, so long as the weather held. So far we’d had a stretch of nice clear days without storms, though that wouldn’t last forever.

The first day, Rob just hung around and watched us work until lunch time rolled around. I noticed he’d vanished a little before noon, but when it was time to call a halt and take a break, he came striding back in with his arms loaded down with takeout boxes from a local restaurant known for its barbecue ribs. I could smell them all the way across the room, and my stomach acknowledged the tempting aroma from where I stood.

“You boys look like you could use a break,” Rob said, setting his burden on one of the tables we had cleared aside to make room for our work.

José made an appreciative noise, and went to get Terry, but apprehension made sweat spring up on the back of my neck.

“I can’t accept this,” I told Rob quietly. No matter how hungry I was, Owen’s warning still stood.

“You did invite me to share a meal with you, didn’t you?” Rob asked, blue eyes twinkling. “What does it matter where the food comes from?”

“It matters,” I murmured. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean any offense, but I was ordered to be cautious.” I hoped I hadn’t just put my foot in it. I wasn’t the most diplomatic of people even on good days, though I’d tried my best. I had to follow the command I had been given, and I had to look out for the safety of my crew, who could be in danger even if they didn’t know who we were working for. They were my responsibility.

“It’s mortal fare,” Rob said lightly. “Given in exchange for company. You’ve my word on that.”

I could tell if a human lied to me, but fae were harder to read. Conventional wisdom said it was impossible for them to tell a lie, but they could twist the truth around into such complex knots you’d never recognize it.

“In exchange for spending lunch with us today,” I clarified. Pretty as Rob was, I didn’t want to be beholden to a fae’s whims for whenever he felt like he wanted company. From Rob’s sly grin, I was making the right call.

“Done,” he agreed.

“All right,” I said, feeling a little better about the situation. José and Terry came in to join us, and Rob busily set about unpacking food. He had brought enough to appease hungry construction workers and werewolves both, which was no mean feat. At least my size means people don’t give me odd looks for the quantity of food I have to consume to keep my metabolism fueled. There were ribs as far as the eye could see.

There was a surprising lack of tension while we ate. Rob was a good conversationalist, though I guess most fae can talk. He had a nice voice, light but still rich, and a laugh that made my toes want to curl. I’m pretty good at schooling my emotions and reactions most of the time, so I don’t think my guys picked up on how Rob was affecting me. Somehow, though, I was pretty sure the fae knew exactly what he was doing.

We finished eating without any incidents, which seemed like a minor miracle. I sent José and Terry back to resume where we’d left off, and helped Rob clear away the debris leftover from lunch. I thought I’d escaped this potentially tricky situation unscathed, but I’d forgotten the fae are as old and canny hunters as werewolves. Maybe older, even. Rod waited until I had my hands full of trash and gnawed bones before he groped my ass as I headed for the trash bin. I jumped, and I felt my face turn scarlet, but part of me was more than a little pleased. Even if it was unexpected, it’s nice to be appreciated by a handsome guy every now and then.

Somehow I managed not to drop anything I was carrying. Rob just gave me a cheeky grin as he skated by me. He had noticed the effect he had on me, damn him. I managed a bemused smile in return, shook my head, and finished taking care of the lunch trash. It was better to keep my mind on the job rather than let my fantasies run away with me. I dusted myself off and headed back to work. Rob’s flirtations would just have to wait.

 


	5. Setbacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The owner of The Red Mile shows up to inspect the work to date... and things don't go as planned. Sam's crew gets a new man to help rush the remodel.

Contracting can be fun, but clients aren’t. Even the best ones rethink their decisions at least a dozen times. If you were lucky, they kept their worries to themselves until the dust settled and it turned out fine. I hadn’t thought of myself as lucky for a very long while.

We’d been at it for a week straight, and were just pushing into the home stretch to finishing the job. It was close to finishing time when Callie, the designer who’d hired me, swept in with some strange man on her heels, her lips pursed in worry. I was more concerned for her than I was some stranger. Between me and the wolf, there wasn’t much human that could physically threaten me anymore. I should have remembered where I was, though.

It was Rob who made me think otherwise. The gentleman with Callie looked about ten or fifteen years older than me, with threads of silver at his temples that gave him a sorta distinguished appearance for all his stubbled cheeks, leather bomber jackets and blue jeans. But Rob, he stood with his shoulders back and his head up like a deer when it caught my scent out hunting. Anybody who put a fae on edge had the right sorta credentials to put my back up, by my way of reckoning.

I kept my body language casual and non-threatening, remembering Owen’s warning. This wasn’t just a regular job, and I couldn’t afford to piss off the fae. Whatever ridiculous demands were about to rain down on our heads, I’d just have to do my best to be accommodating.

“Hey, Callie,” I greeted my friend. Callie’s petite and blonde and cute as a button with claws that’d do a tigress proud beneath her carefully polished exterior. Whatever the client wanted, I could trust her to try and get him to see reason at least.

“Sam, thank God you haven’t gone home for the day.” Callie ran her hand through her feathery blonde hair, leaving bits standing on end. “This is Mr. O’Hara, the owner of The Red Mile. Mr. O’Hara, this is my foreman, Sam Willoughby.”

I nodded politely, since I had my hands full of nail boxes and it didn’t seem polite to try and shake hands with a fae with this much steel on me. If Rob’s reaction hadn’t been enough to clue me in that my employer wasn’t human, his horsey, moss and fresh-dug earth scent would have. Humans smell like a lotta things, but they don’t make the air crackle with energy when they walk into a room, most of ’em, anyway.

“Nice to meet you, sir.”

The big bad boss man wasn’t looking at me, just my project. He nodded to me absently as he paced through the bar, eyeballing the cabinets, paneling and trim. I waved my guys back and let him get a look. I knew the work was solid because I wouldn’t tolerate anything less, but Callie’s attitude told me this one was going to be hard to please no matter what.

“No,” he finally said. “Too dark, and the style is wrong.”

I kept my mouth shut, since it wasn’t my job to argue style with the client, but I heard Callie’s heart rate speed up. She kept her expression composed, though.

“You were adamant about the white oak for trim when we went over the samples last month, but we could go back and compare it with the maple instead. It will change the estimate and delay the time to finish the project, though,” she pointed out. “The crew will have to tear out what they’ve already installed and order new materials.”

“I’ll loan the crew my man to speed things along.”

Callie hid it well, but I caught a whiff of anger and frustration from her. “Mr. O’Hara, I’m not sure that’s really a solution. I brought Mr. Willoughby in as foreman because I’ve worked with him before and he had a solid record of bringing in crews who can get the job done right. He knows his people. If we could just extend the deadline by a couple of weeks—”

“No.”

I stifled a wince. While I appreciated Callie sticking up for me and my professional reputation, this wasn’t any ordinary client we were dealing with.

“It’s okay, Callie, I’ll make it work,” I said. As long as whomever this Mr. O’Hara sent to work with us wasn’t actively sabotaging us, we could still pull it off. I’d have to bill more to cover the overtime necessary, but Callie would be expecting that. “Get me the specs on the new stuff and I’ll get an expedited order in.”

“Sam, are you sure?”

I nodded. “Even with extra help it’ll mean some long days, but my guys can do it.”

The man tossed a pair of work gloves to Rob, who caught them inches from his face. “Get it done, Robin.”

Now that surprised me. I wasn’t expecting him to task the bartender with grunt work. At least he was someone my guys were already familiar with, and he’d already been helping out in little ways like sweeping up sawdust for us.

“Sir?”

The owner smirked a little. “No sense having a bartender if there won’t be a bar.”

I sensed there was some subtext in O’Hara’s remarks the rest of us weren’t meant to catch, but I left it alone. I wasn’t interested in getting caught up in anyone’s politics. Whatever lay between Rob and his boss was none of my business. I still breathed a sigh of relief when the man left, trailing an apologetic Callie in his wake.

“Do I sense a heck of a lot of overtime in our futures, boss?” Terry drawled.

“Yeah, looks that way, guys,” I replied. I glanced at Rob. “Welcome to the crew, I guess. You got any experience doing woodwork?”

“Nothing recent.”

That would have been too much to hope, but there were still things he could do. “You okay with taking direction from me?” I asked. He gave me a bit of a smile and tugged the gloves into place.

“We’ll find out, won’t we?”

“I guess we will.” I sighed. “Okay, guys, bright and early tomorrow. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

 

 


	6. Cold Iron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An accident with a nail gun leaves Rob in a tough spot, and it falls on Sam to help him out of it.

The lights were on and doors open when I arrived at The Red Mile. Normally I’m the first one on a job site, but I wasn’t surprised to see Rob waiting for me. I set the cardboard holder with the foam cups of coffee I always brought for my subcontractors on one of the tables we’d pushed out of the way before I turned to the new man… fae… on the team.

“So,” I began, “we should have a little bit before the guys show up. What can you handle safely in both materials and equipment? That’ll tell me what tasks I can throw your way.”

“Are you always this concerned for the welfare of your workers?” Rob replied, raising a brow at me.

“Yep,” I said. “Keeps people from losing fingers, or worse, and keeps the insurance premiums down.”

His smile was razor edged. “I’d rather not handle your steel tools.”

“Well yeah, I figured that much.” I ran a hand over my hair. Tool tech had come a long way over the years, but the many bodies of the most basic pieces of equipment were still going to be mostly steel. A slip with a hammer or pry bar could hurt Rob a hell of a lot worse than it would any of us. “It’s gonna be boring, but if you can pile up the old trim as we pull it down, and bring the cut pieces to put up once we’ve got the new stuff in, that’d be a big help.”

“I can do that,” he agreed.

“Alrighty,” I said, relaxing a hair.

I didn’t really know much about Rob, aside from his non-human status and penchant for flirting, and I’d been concerned he might bridle at taking orders from a werewolf. Some of the fae can apparently get in quite a snit if they don’t feel like they’re being treated with the proper respect. His boss had certainly seemed the type to take offense if things hadn’t gone his way.

Terry and José had both grumbled a bit about indecisive clients and their picky ways after Mr. O’Hara had left last evening, and I knew some of their frustration was directed at me, too. Normally I’d have pushed harder, or encouraged Callie to push harder to get the client to go with their original choice, but I wasn’t about to butt heads with one of the fae over something like a change of moulding. It was time intensive, to be sure, but as long as he paid us we’d come out all right.

Rob kept his head down and worked, and that helped. We fell into a rhythm, the four of us, and tearing out the white oak trim we’d installed went pretty quick. It pissed me off to see so much good quality lumber go to waste, but I kept my comments to myself. The client was responsible for paying for the wood, whether or not he changed his mind. I’d made sure that little line made it into any contract I signed after one job back in the 90’s when I’d still been figuring out the business and gotten stuck footing the bill when a customer got indecisive on me.

Annoying as it was to undo all our hard work, I could at least turn the usable pieces over to the local building materials recycler for credit on future jobs where I might need some tricky to find piecework, so there was something to be salvaged from it. Once the lumber distributor dropped off the new stuff, the real heavy work began in earnest.

The new style the track owner had picked had more elaborate crown moulding than the previous stuff, which meant some pretty tricky mitre work. Terry set up with the scroll saw to handle the necessary cuts so the joins would fit flush once we installed them. That left me and José to handle the bulk of the install, with Rob acting as go-for or helping stabilize things while we nailed them into place. The deadline to finish the project was coming up fast, which meant long hours of hard, heavy work to get it done in time, all the while keeping up the same standard of quality the job demanded. Fae-owned or not, this was fairly high profile work for someone like me, and getting it done right could mean other job opportunities in the future.

Everything went okay until we were about three days out from our deadline. I’d had to take a break to call the distributor to find out where my cabinet doors had gotten to, since they hadn’t shown up with the main load. We’d all been pulling twelve to fifteen hour days to get things done in time, and I was having a hard time reigning in my wolf’s temper dealing with the clueless person on the other end of the line. Everybody was short on sleep, and tensions were running higher than I would have liked. A little deadline pressure can be welcome, but I hate rush jobs.

The muted hiss-thunk of José’s nail gun had been a measured background noise while I waited impatiently for the person on the phone to sort things out. An exclamation in Spanish and a sharp bark of pain pulled my attention back to my guys. I snapped my phone closed on the hapless distributor. The call could wait. Rob had been stabilizing some of the trim for José while the human man nailed it in place, and I couldn’t be sure which of them had moved wrong, but the nail gun had sent one of its projectiles through the meat of Rob’s gloved hand, pinning it to the wood.

“ _Stop_!” I yelled, bounding across the room. I probably moved quicker than I should have, but José was focused on Rob, alternating between cursing and apologizing in Spanish. I wasn’t sure if pulling on my wolf’s dominance would work on Rob, who wasn’t human or wolf, though he did quit tugging. His face had gone dead white and the pupils of his eyes were too wide. I could smell blood and pain, and had to force the part of myself that liked it to shut up.

“ _Lo siento_ , Boss, I—”

“It’s okay, José. It was an accident,” I cut him off. “I’ll deal with it. Go take a break.”

He went, grateful for the out I’d given him. Accidents happened on the job, no matter how careful you tried to keep things organized. They happened especially when people got tired and worked hours like the ones we’d been pulling. Left alone with Rob, I turned my attention to the problem. The leather work glove would conceal the iron burns for now, but I had to get the steel out or I reckoned it would act a lot like a werewolf when he came in contact with silver. The burns, the weakness, the blood poison… It could lead to death if left in. I studied the piece of moulding, and grabbed the wood on either side of Rob’s hand.

“Brace yourself,” I told him, and got a white-faced nod in return. Wood cracked and splintered under my fingers. I tried to keep things as stable as possible, but Rob still winced when I broke the wood off to a more reasonable length. The nail had to come out, but not here.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“You can’t take me to a hospital,” he told me.

“I figured,” I replied. He looked a little wobbly on his feet, cradling his injured hand close, so I put an arm under his shoulders to steady him.

“Then where are we going?”

“My truck,” I said. “It’s bad enough that I _should_ take you to a doctor, but then they’d know you’re fae, wouldn’t they?” I’d been similarly warned to avoid hospitals if I had a choice. I was supposed to call Owen if I got hurt and wasn’t healing well.

“Yes,” Rob said.

“Then I’m taking care of it.” I hustled him out one of the patio doors toward the side lot where my truck was parked. Terry stopped the saw when we exited.

“Everything okay, Boss?” he called.

“Nail gun injury,” I replied. “It ain’t too bad, but it needs to be seen to properly. I gotta head off site for a couple hours. I’m leavin’ you in charge. Take a break if you need it, but get the rest of the cuts finished before we get back. Oh, and once José feels better, tell him I ain’t pissed at him and he’s not losin’ his job, and to get his ass back to work.”

Terry nodded. “Will do.”

The buzzing whir of the saw followed us all the way to the parking lot. We had to leave to get the fiction to hold up, but as soon as I found a quiet place to pull off where I could work in private, I parked the truck again. I didn’t have a pack, but I still kept an industrial sized first aid kit in my truck. It’d come in handy any number of times for patching up job site injuries.

Rob sat sideways in the passenger’s seat while I worked, his long legs dangling out of the open door. His expression was pained, but he didn’t make a sound when I used a pair of heavy shears to cut away the leather glove. There was only a little blood, but a nasty black burn spread from the puncture where the nail had gone in, and would only get worse until it was removed. The head of the nail was too small to get a good grip with my fingers, but a pair of pliers fixed that problem.

“This is gonna hurt,” I warned him.

“Just get it out,” he told me through gritted teeth. I nodded, and yanked without giving him any warning. Werewolves are damn strong, and the nail came free with just a little effort. Rob shuddered and slumped forward in the seat, muttering something in a language I didn’t understand. He cradled his injured hand with his good one, and now that the nail was out, blood welled bright on his steel-burned palm.

Blood and pain brought out the wolf in me, and it was dangerously close to the surface already. This time I was the one who swayed on my feet before I got my other half properly locked down. Rob was looking at me with an odd expression when I’d recovered myself.

“Your eyes are gold,” he told me.

“Sorry,” I said. “We’ll get somethin’ to eat after I clean this up. Helps me control the wolf better.”

I didn’t know if fae could get infections. Werewolves can’t. I figured it was better to play it safe, though, so I applied disinfectants to the injury before I bound it up in clean gauze. Rob hissed at me during the process, but his arm stayed rock steady. His eyes looked a little funny, but whenever I looked at him directly, the strangeness went away.

My wolf was still hungry by the time I finished cleaning up and put the kit away. Rob was pale and had his bandaged hand tucked in close when I got back in the truck. The chemical stink of the stuff I’d used to treat the wound helped cover the blood smell, though, so I was able to keep my wolf under wraps. I still donned sunglasses before taking us through the drive-thru at a local barbecue place. I didn’t want my eyes to freak out the poor cashier when she handed me an order of pulled pork and coleslaw large enough to feed half a dozen construction crews.

Rob stayed quiet while I found another place to park where we wouldn’t be bothered, and I tucked into the meat and didn’t stop eating until my other half’s predatory urges subsided to the usual dull roar. It’d taken three of the containers to subdue my wolf, but at least I didn’t feel so much like eating my passenger anymore. I found Rob watching me when I came up for air. I half expected him to comment on my manners or eating habits, but he didn’t.

“I don’t care to be in anyone’s debt,” he said, his voice soft.

I shook my head. “I’d do the same for any of my crew,” I told him. “I know what it’s like to have a secret that can’t be shared, and spillin’ yours wouldn’t help anybody. You don’t owe me anything.” Owen would probably tell me I was a fool for not holding one over on a fae when I had the chance. Their kind deal in favors and bargains like currency. That just ain’t the kind of person I am, though.

"I see," he replied.

“You oughta take it easy for the rest of the day at least,” I told him. “I gotta go track down those cabinet doors and then get back to the job site. Is there some place you’d like me to drop you off?”

Rob hesitated for a moment, and I saw something wild in his face before he settled. “No.”

“Well, okay,” I conceded. I’d have to trust him to know what his own limits were, since I had no idea what sort of fae Rob was. I could tell the nail had hurt him bad, but he hid it pretty well, better than most humans, certainly. “I don’t suppose there’s any harm if you ride along with me. It’ll be a bit before we get back. Just rest. There’s food if you’re hungry, since I managed not to wolf it all down.” I wrinkled my nose at the unintentional pun. “We can stop and grab you somethin’ else if you’d prefer, too.”

It took a little effort to turn off mother-hen mode before I sank into it completely. I guess Owen’s not the only one subject to acting that way. Werewolves, especially those of us that are dominant, instinctively work to protect the people who belong to us. Since I didn’t have a pack, that meant my crew, including Rob now. I knew he’d be okay, and was probably a hell of a lot more powerful than we could fathom, but my wolf wanted to fret and growl that one of my people had been hurt on my watch now that it was no longer interested in the hurt man as potential prey. I put the truck back in gear to get us on the road again. After a while, Rob picked up some of the leftover food and started eating.

I let him be. I didn’t know how fae were with hurts, but I got pretty cranky if I was injured and around other people. Rob sat in the truck while I grumped at the lumber distributor. Humans I dealt with might not know what I was, but some part of the lizard hindbrain recognizes predators. They were real apologetic about the missing part of the order, but it still took a good thirty minutes of stomping and glaring before they found my cabinet doors and arranged to have somebody bring them out to the truck.

Rob was waiting, sitting upright and alert when I got back to where I’d parked. I was grateful he seemed to be handling his recovery so quickly. My wolf didn’t look on him as prey, not exactly, but it was never a safe thing to sit so close to somebody who was bleeding everywhere. I didn’t smell anything fresh anymore. Maybe the fae healed up like werewolves did.

“Hate it when parts of my order get lost,” I grumbled, climbing into the driver’s seat. I did keep from looking directly at Rob. Given that I knew so little about fae, it was safer to treat him like I would have a hurt werewolf. He didn’t reply, and I didn’t try to push for conversation, just waited impatiently for the doors to be loaded. I knew Terry was trustworthy, but the wolf in me itched to get back to the job site so I could make sure things were coming together right. It was my project and I wouldn’t be happy unless I managed the whole of it.

“It’s fine if you need to leave me so you can work.” Except when he said funny stuff, Rob sounded like most any other human. Educated, maybe, and with an accent from somewhere way north of Kentucky. Now there was a growl beneath the words that my wolf responded to. There was danger here. Maybe not immediate danger, but enough to make my other half wary.

“If you were a wolf, I’d be tellin’ you to go home so you wouldn’t risk eatin’ anybody,” I admitted. Not that I had all that much experience with other werewolves either, aside from Owen, but that felt right. “But you ain’t a wolf. I trust you know best what your limits are, and what you need to do to heal up proper. I’d rather you didn’t injure yourself further, is all.”

Rob smirked down at his injured hand. “You don’t think I should rush home and take iron supplements to help me recover?”

So help me, a bark of laughter escaped me. “Somehow I doubt that’d do you much good,” I said.

His smile faded. “Finn is at the track today. I should go somewhere else.”

I nodded. Rob’s boss had made an impression, even if he’d mostly ignored me. “There a good place I can take you?” I asked.

He was quiet. I wasn’t sure if it was the pain I could smell, or if he was just thinking. “I don’t know.” He eyed me sideways. “Your wolves, they protect their weak ones when they are hurt, and fight above them. Fae do no such thing.”

“Depends on the wolf, actually,” I told him. “Usually that’s true, but sometimes an injury’s just a perfect excuse to attack somebody when he’s already down.”

“Those below me would try. Those above me would succeed.” Rob didn’t need to tell me that Finn of his was higher. I’d seen it, and so had the wolf. “Here, we are not confined to one place.”

“I know somewhere they won’t go,” I said, tamping down on the flash of territoriality from my wolf. “You’d be safe at my place.” If Owen came over unannounced as he liked to, this would end in blood, but the safety of my crew mattered more to me than Rob being fae. His boss had effectively made me responsible for him when he’d insisted Rob help with the job, and I took care of my people.

“Your place.”

“It ain’t much, but it’ll give you a chance to rest up without havin’ to look over your shoulder,” I pointed out.

Rob nodded slowly.

“It’s up to you, though. I try and look out for my crew, whomever I’m workin’ with.” I spotted movement in the truck’s mirror out of the corner of my eye and gave it my attention while Rob pondered. Someone from the warehouse was finally bringing out the cabinet doors I’d ordered on a shrinkwrapped pallet on a forklift. It was about damn time.

“All right,” Rob said abruptly.

Something uncoiled a little in my chest when he accepted. Rob wasn’t a less dominant wolf, or a human I could just order around and expect to be obeyed, but my wolf liked that he was willing to take our offer. We didn’t like seeing him hurt.

“Okay,” I agreed. “Lemme make sure that pallet’s tied down right, and I’ll drop you by my place on the way back to the track.” I got back out of the truck to supervise the loading process. At least this time it only took a little bit of snapping and snarling to get things stowed to my satisfaction. I ain’t mean, but I like things done to my standards.

I took Rob back to my house. I ain’t really sure what possessed me to offer it in the first place, but he needed somewhere safe to lie low for a bit, and it was all I could think of. Rosie set up a couple of the belling howls a coonhound can make from the backyard when she heard my truck in the driveway. My dog don’t bark much, but she’ll greet strangers with her huntin’ cry when she smells them.

“I forgot you have a dog,” Rob said. He hadn’t bothered with the seat belt, so there was none of the awkwardness of trying to unfasten the thing with a bum hand.

“She’s friendly,” I told him. “Just sayin’ hello. She’s on her run in the backyard right now. Is… That ain’t a problem for you, is it?” I asked belatedly. Werewolves don’t generally have issues with dogs once we’ve established who’s boss, but I didn’t know how a fae might react to my dog.

“It’s fine.”

Nodding, I tromped up the front steps to open the door and let him into my place. “C’mon in.” Fae weren’t like vampires as far as I understood it. The invitation wasn’t really necessary, but it was polite. Rob followed me inside, and I watched him take in and assess my home. The neighborhood I lived in was on the older, shabbier side. It wasn’t the house I’d grown up in, but it was about the same age. Two bedrooms, one and a half baths, eat-in kitchen and decent living room space, with a small attached garage I used as a home workshop. It’d been built sometime shortly after the second world war. I’d bought it cheap and trashed because it had good bones, and the trim beneath six coats of paint had been beautiful once I stripped it down and restained it.

If my furniture was a little mismatched and dog-chewed, it didn’t bother me. I might work with interior designers like Callie, but I didn’t have the scratch to blow on making my house look like a magazine showpiece. It was small and comfortable, and it suited me and Rosie just fine. I didn’t have many guests aside from Owen, so I wasn’t sure how Rob would react to my humble home. When I turned to look at him again, he was smiling.

“Cozy.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “That’s how I think of it.” Part of my brain, the wolf part, was unsure about letting Rob into our territory like this. We didn’t know a whole lot about him, and we were planning to leave him alone in our home. The part of my that was more concerned about his injury and what might happen if his own folk discovered the moment of weakness was stronger, though. I’d seen what happened when wolves smelled out a vulnerability. Hell, I’d been on the wrong end of that attention, and I didn’t think fae would be a whole lot different in that respect. I told my territorial instincts privately to shut up.

“There’s food in the fridge and the couch in the living room may not look great but it’s pretty comfortable. TV works if you get bored. Rosie oughta be fine ’til I’m done at the track tonight, so don’t worry ’bout the dog.”

“All right,” Rob agreed. “I appreciate it.”

He’d been as careful not to thank me as I’d been warned to be with him and his folk. I just nodded in acknowledgement. “It’s no trouble. I gotta head back now. Just take it easy.”

“Good luck.”

I gave him a smile and a wave, and left the fae to his own devices in my home. I still had work to get done.

 

 


	7. Job Well Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The remodeling work is finally finished! Sam tries to be realistic about his chances of ever seeing Rob again now that he has no reason to be on fae territory.

It took me and my crew all of those last three days of grueling shifts to get the job done, but we had it finished on time. I don’t like it when things come in just under the wire, but getting it finished was the important part. Rob was there to help the morning after his accident, despite my protests. I’d come home the day he’d been injured to find the fae man passed out on my couch with Rosie sleeping on his feet even though I’d told him not to worry about my dog.

Standing there watching that beautiful man sleep gave rise to feelings I wasn’t fully prepared to deal with, especially since I knew so little about him, and didn’t know at all how he felt about me. I guess it showed some measure of trust that he slept so deeply in my presence. My wolf wouldn’t let me do that near anyone that might be a threat. We came from similar, but very different worlds, Rob and I. Better to leave it alone than try and bridge that gap.

I hadn’t been sure he’d still be there when I came back, but he’d stayed, which told me he’d needed the scant refuge my home offered more than he’d been willing to admit out loud. I’d left him be and ordered delivery, too tired to cook for myself or anyone else with the stress and the wolf gnawing at me. Rob had roused when the pizzas got there. God help me, but his sleep-ruffled hair made him even more attractive. He didn’t say much, just let me feed him pizza and call him a cab when he said he couldn’t stay any longer. I kept my feelings to myself. No sense trying to start anything with so little time left, anyway.

Still, it’d surprised me when he showed up with the rest of the crew the next morning. Most of my guys would’ve taken at least a day off to recover from an injury like that, and been fully justified in it. Rob looked the same as always, except for a fresh pair of work gloves. José had been real apologetic, but Rob had just waved him off and we’d all gotten down to work. No time to waste on niceties, I guess. If his hand hurt him, he didn’t show it. My wolf approved of that. Showing weakness was dangerous where there might be enemies to attack you. I knew plenty about that from my dealings with the pack, and it seemed the fae were even less inclined to cooperate than werewolves.

So we’d busted our asses and gotten the job done, Rob working right along with us. The real test, though, was when Callie and Mr. O’Hara came back to do the final walkthrough. I’d seen Callie a couple times as the deadline neared. She did a good job of hiding it, but I could smell the nervous tension under her tasteful perfume. I’d already seen how demanding a client O’Hara could be. If our craftsmanship didn’t measure up, and we pushed past the deadline, it was gonna start eating into whatever profits I could pull from this job. I wanted it done and discharged so I could get off fae turf. Much as I liked being near Rob and all his flirting, just being there was dangerous for me.

We’d just finished sweeping up most of the sawdust and debris that generally accumulates when you’re doing woodwork when Callie walked in with the client. Like before, I waved the guys back, and we went to stand out of the way while Mr. O’Hara prowled into the room to inspect our work. I’m a damn werewolf, burdened with a beast that can smell out emotion and read a body like a novel, but I couldn’t tell what the man was thinking.

“Acceptable,” he said crisply.

Callie didn’t quite sag with relief, but I saw the line of her shoulders twitch. I had the feeling she’d be as glad as me to be done with this job. “Excellent. Mr. O’Hara, if you’ll accompany me to sign off on the paperwork, we can call this remodel finished.” I just nodded in her direction. She’d make sure my check got cut as part of wrapping up business.

“Robin,” the fae beckoned. Rob turned and walked over without a word. I felt a little twinge seeing him go. The Alpha could talk that way, make any of the local wolves come to his hand like a well trained dog if he wanted. It worked on me, too, even though I wasn’t pack. I stayed put and keep my expression pleasantly neutral. I couldn’t afford to get caught up in fairy business any more than I already had.

I was a little relieved when Callie came back with the check and didn’t smell like fae stink or blood, to tell the truth. Some part of me saw her as mine, as surrogate pack, and worried for her in the face of the big bad faeries. She handed me the envelope with a smile, and I could smell the relief on her.

“Thanks again for dealing with that curveball, Sam,” she said.

“No trouble, darlin’,” I drawled, exaggerating my accent a little. “My crew’s the best there is.”

“They always are,” Callie agreed. “Why else do you think I keep calling you for work?”

“My charmin’ personality and witty banter, of course,” I replied, and her smile turned into a grin. Callie knew I was gay, but the flirting was kind of a defense mechanism. Most of the guys I hired as subcontractors weren’t aware, and I preferred to keep things that way. Some humans were just as bad as the pack when it came to who they’d work with.

“Well, I owe you for pulling this one off in time. Drinks are on me next time we’re out,” she said with a wink.

“I’ll hold you to that,” I promised genially, and tucked the check away in a pocket. I saw Terry grin and elbow José out of the corner of my eye, and knew my reputation was safe for the time being. I cleared my throat and turned back to my crew, minus Rob. “Okay, that’s enough gawkin’ from you two. Soon as we finish cleanin’ up, we can blow this joint.”

“Amen to that,” Terry commented, and scooped up the push broom’s handle.

I had to admit, if only to myself, that I was a little bummed I hadn’t gotten a chance to say goodbye to Rob. I couldn’t precisely thank him for the work he’d done. He was fae, and it wasn’t like he’d volunteered or been part of my paid crew, but he had helped us finish on time. That, and he’d had a cute butt. And a cute rest of him. If nothing else, I’d never forget the memory of him passed out asleep on my couch, or that time he’d grabbed my butt. Maybe it was just a glimpse of something I’d never have, but I’d learned to hang on to what I could get. That was a lesson I’d picked up long before I ever became a wolf.

I was used to disappointment, after all. It wasn’t Rob’s fault for being fae, anymore than it was my fault for being a werewolf. Some things just ain’t meant to be.

Putting thoughts of the too-pretty-for-his-own-good fae bartender out of my mind, I pitched in to help my guys finish with the cleanup, gather up the last few tools we’d forgotten, and waved a goodbye to my subcontractors before we all headed out.


	8. Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems Rob wasn't as prepared to let things go as Sam thought. Date night gets hot and heavy.

I didn’t expect to see much of Rob after the remodel job at The Red Mile finished up. Once the check cleared so I could pay my subcontractors, that should’ve been the end of it. Much as I’d liked the guy, I had no legitimate reason to hang around fairyland that I’d be able to justify to Owen when the job was done. I’d promised to stay away, and I keep my word.

Rob, though, seemed to have other ideas. I kept running into him when I ran errands around town. He’d turn up at the grocery store, or he’d show up at the gas station, leaning against the side of one of those expensive mostly fiberglass sports cars while I was filling up my truck. I’d caught his scent and a glimpse or two of him when I went out running as my other half over the next couple weeks, too.

Saying it this way, it almost seems like he was stalking me, but it wasn’t really like that. Stalkers don’t come over and chat friendly-like and suggest catching a bite to eat at a local cafe, or mention which movies were playing at one of the local theaters. He was real careful not to phrase it in a way that’d leave me obligated to him or make me break my word to Owen, which I appreciated, and I ain’t sorry to say I took him up on more than one of those offers.

It was nice, having somebody to socialize with. I’d never been a social butterfly, not before, and definitely not after I became a werewolf, but my wolfy-self craved contact in ways the man never had. Owen’s visits and Rosie helped, but for the first time in years I found something in myself beginning to uncoil and relax. I knew Owen had told me to be careful, to be on my guard around Rob or any other fae, but it was just so damn nice to enjoy time spent with another person, especially since he seemed to like me right back. Spending time with him was a little like curling up near a warm fire on a blustery night.

’Course, I was still pretty wary on some levels. I wasn’t under any illusions that Rob was as human as he pretended. I’d seen the burns those nails had left on his skin. The fae rarely do anything without multiple layers of plots and schemes and motivations, and I had a hard time trying to figure out his real interest in me. Part of me was happy to let the slow seduction continue, to just enjoy the attention and the company, but the rest kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It reminded me of those disaster drills in the old tv shows, with all the little kids under their desks just waiting for a Russian nuke to fall from the sky. They were smarter than me, those kids. They went under their desks – I had the nuke over for movie night.

It wasn’t just that I thought I might be falling for him. Rosie’s a better judge of character than I am, and seeing my dog curled up against Rob’s legs, begging for popcorn made me feel a lot better about inviting him into my home. Rob sprawled almost as much as the dog. His hair looked as silky as her ears and made my hands itch with the need to touch. The natural curl hid the fact that he wore it a little longer than was conventional—long enough to touch his collar.

I was still a little hesitant about getting too close, too fast. It just felt unreal having this beautiful man lounging on my scruffy couch in my shabby little house. Letting him stay here while he’d been hurt was different. That had been necessity, but this was by choice. I knew he was interested. Werewolves are masters of body language once they learn to pay attention to it, and that’s before a body counts our noses. Interested wasn’t the same as safe.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said quietly, his eyes on the screen. I had lost track of what we were watching. Something with a lot of explosions. “I hope you understand that I wish you no harm.”

“No, I-I know that,” I blurted. From what Owen told me, it was rare for the fae to be so direct about anything. “Rob, I’m a werewolf, but I ain’t completely stupid. I wouldn’t’ve invited you over if I thought you meant to hurt me. I just… I’m not used to anybody bein’ interested in me, y’know? Even before I… Most of my life I’ve just kept to myself. This is kinda new territory for me.”

Rob’s smiles are dangerous. Sometimes it’s because he knows how deep that tongue of his can cut, but this one was a thing of sheer beauty. “How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes," he murmured. He didn’t sound bitter at all, but then Rob always said odd things. “They have stolen your joy.”

I found myself fighting the urge to fidget. “Well, uh, I don’t know ’bout stolen, but there’s less opportunities for a guy like me to find, um, companionship ’round these parts.” Don’t get me wrong, Lexington ain’t completely backwards. There’s a gay community here, but it’s small and not very outspoken, and I had enough trouble with the pack without rubbing their noses in what I was.

“They took more than romance from you." Rob always seemed small to me, sorta fragile, but when he sat up straight he was taller and more broad shouldered than I remembered. “Wolves run in packs, do they not?”

“Most do,” I admitted.

“They should be accepting. You shouldn’t be so lonely.” Fire blazed in Rob’s eyes until they were midnight blue. “Shame upon them for making you tolerate me.”

“ _Tolerate_ you?” My mouth was probably gaping open, but I couldn’t imagine anybody just tolerating somebody like Rob. “No, not at all. Part of me is still havin’ trouble believin’ you’re really interested in spendin’ time around me, but I’m glad you’re here. The pack… It’s complicated,” I hedged. “Werewolves ain’t the most progressive folk.”

“I’m fae,” Rob said dryly.

It both was and wasn’t an answer, which was about what I’d come to expect from Rob. “That don’t bother me,” I told him. “At least with you I don’t have to hide what I am, either part of it. Around the pack I can’t, and some of ’em take it personal even if I don’t mean it that way. I try not to take it too much to heart. I’ve been dodgin’ slurs and worse since I was a kid and somebody figured out girls didn’t interest me.”

Rob huffed and settled back into the couch. I shifted in my chair and tried to pay attention to the movie. It did make me feel nice and warm inside that Rob was offended on my behalf. It had been a long time since somebody stood up for me. It was strange. Different. I liked it.

We finished the movie in companionable silence, though I didn’t recall much of it afterwards. My mind was on other things. Mostly I wondered if I had the courage to act on half the things spilling through my head.

“I really do appreciate your spendin’ time with me,” I told Rob when I walked him to the door after the movie finished. “I’d like to keep seein’ you.”

Rob smiled, slow and sweet as sin. “I’d like that, too.”

The butterflies in my stomach were doing backflips. He was close enough that the rich forest and river scent that was uniquely Rob filled my nose. The porch light painted warm highlights on his up-tilted face and dark curling hair. He was a couple inches shorter than me. All I’d have to do to close the distance between us was lean down a little bit. Unless my nose was in on the conspiracy, he wanted me to.

I was maybe half a hair away when the car across the street backfired. We jumped apart faster’n anything human could’ve done. I felt my face heat.

“Maybe next time,” Rob said in the growing silence, a teasing grin on his face. I didn’t want to wait for next time. Too often in my life there wasn’t a next time. I’d played good dog for so long, tried to keep a low profile, stay out of the way, not make waves. Rob’s little commentary about letting the pack steal my joy had gotten under my skin, whether I like it or no. I didn’t want to give up this chance or any other to snatch back a little bit of happiness.

I could have let it go, backed off and let him walk away, but I took a step closer instead. “How ’bout now?” I said, pent up emotion and the wolf’s influence making my voice a little deeper and rougher than usual. Another step put Rob’s back to the cool painted plaster in my home’s little entryway, but his scent hadn’t gained any anxiety despite my aggressive move.

“Now,” Rob murmured, “is good.”

“I like now,” I agreed, bracing my hands on the wall to either side of him. The wolf made it harder to think, but that was okay. Right then I wasn’t in much of a thinking mood. I dipped my head to capture his mouth with my own. I’ve kissed men before, but kissing Rob had a whole new depth and dimension I’d never experienced before, and there was nothing safe or chaste about it. Heaven help me, I was a goner the moment our lips met. We were both breathing hard when I was up to thinking again, and Rob had his hands in my hair.

I pulled back enough to try and catch my breath, and a helpless little laugh escaped. “That’s more like it,” I panted. “Been wantin’ to do that since I laid eyes on you,” I admitted a little sheepishly.

Rob tugged on my hair. “You could do it again.”

The feel of his fingers in my short locks was almost enough to make me come undone right there. “I’d like that,” I said, and was happy to make good on his suggestion.

I heard a cackle from the porch next door. “Get a room!”

It was like someone had dashed cold water over me. I like my next door neighbor, but sometimes she had the worst timing. “Ah, sorry Ms. Mason,” I called, positive my face was beet red now. I’d been so focused on Rob I hadn’t thought about who else might see us.

Rob laughed, low and rich, and nuzzled against my neck. I didn’t like anybody near my throat, and my wolf was a lot worse than me, but Rob didn’t bother me at all.

“Should we?” he asked, grinning up at me.

“Should we what?” I returned, my brain a few steps behind the rest of me.

“Get a room.” He laughed again, and the sheer mirth made my heart want to melt a little bit.

“Do… Do you want to? I, uh… Are you okay with that?” I stammered, smooth-ass suave werewolf that I was.

“Since I laid eyes on you,” Rob purred.

Well then.

“Have fun, boys!” Ms. Mason crowed from her porch.

It was enough to make me pull Rob into my arms and kick the door shut--not quite hard enough to rattle it in the frame. Some things don’t need an audience.

 

 


	9. Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rob and Sam debate the virtues of pancake syrup vs. maple syrup over breakfast the following morning.

The morning sun’s rays slanting into my bedroom woke me from a sound sleep, one of the deepest and most restful I could recall since I’d become a wolf. I almost never felt this good ’cept for the morning after a full moon run. Even better was the warm body sharing my bed, still curled up against me, one arm flung over my waist. Turns out Rob is sun-kissed all over, and adorable when his hair’s all messed up from being asleep.

I was perversely glad he was still here, if only because it proved last night hadn’t been some magical fever dream. But no, the beautiful man in my bed was very much real. He made a faint noise of protest and his grip on me tightened when I shifted my weight. For all he’s several inches shorter than me and at least fifty pounds lighter and not a werewolf, Rob was surprisingly strong. I hadn’t had to worry about hurting him at all.

“Nnn, warm,” he grumbled, snuggling closer.

I chuckled. Werewolves are like miniature furnaces. Rosie wouldn’t sleep on my bed when it got hot and my aging window air conditioner couldn’t keep up. My stomach rumbled at me, reminding me why I’d woken up.

“Hungry,” I told the half-awake fae sharing my bed. He opened one deep blue eye enough to give me an offended look that made me smile. “Gotta make breakfast,” I said apologetically.

“I could _be_ breakfast,” he mumbled, and the stink-eye expression bled into a lazy smile with too many promises behind it. Dangerous man.

“Maybe after real food,” I said, though I was sorely tempted. “Otherwise my other half might try’n take you up on that in ways neither of us’d like.”

“Hmm, that would be unfortunate.” Rob rolled into a seated position with the grace of a dancer. “All right. Breakfast.” Naked as a jaybird, he climbed free of the sheets and headed down the hall without me. His butt had cute little dimples that showed up when he walked. I slid out of bed, wondering if I’d remembered to close the drapes before things got interesting the night before. If I hadn’t, my neighbors were in for a show.

I stopped to pull on a pair of sweatpants before I followed. Rob was rummaging in the kitchen cabinets by the time I got there, pulling out flour to go with the eggs and sugar. Owen kept my cabinets stocked with those things, not me. I ate meat, not baking. “Pancakes?”

“I’ll mix them if you cook,” Rob answered wryly, nodding at the rack where I hung all my pans. Every last one was seasoned cast iron.

“I think I can manage that much,” I said. “Won’t hurt you any to eat things cooked on it, will it?” I asked as an afterthought. I didn’t want to inadvertently poison my… guest? Boyfriend? One night stand? I had no idea where things stood between me and Rob now, but I still felt good enough about it that I didn’t care to ask.

"Not even a little,” Rob promised.

“Good to know.” I smiled and went to the fridge for bacon. Pancakes sounded good, but I needed protein to balance things out or I’d be hungry again in an hour. Rosie’s tail beat a familiar tattoo against my legs when I set a pan to heat and began laying out strips. It was strange to stand in my kitchen fixing food with another man. Owen came over on a regular basis, but he always shooed me out of the way so he could fix everything up just so.

I had the griddle spitting hot when Rob set the bowl of batter by my elbow. I ain’t the world’s greatest chef, but living alone and being a werewolf means you learn to cook just to keep enough calories in your system. Bad cooking gets old real fast, so I’d learned how to keep myself fed decently. Pancakes aren’t all that hard. It’s mostly watching and flipping things at the right time. I listened to Rob rummaging in my kitchen’s narrow pantry and opening and closing cabinets, and decided I liked having him go through my things. It was a little distracting knowing he was naked while he looked around, but I knew how to keep my appetites in check.

“What kind of man doesn’t keep syrup on hand for pancakes?” Rob groused behind me.

“There’s pancake syrup in the fridge, I think,” I mused, removing another round of cooked cakes to a clean plate.

“That is corn syrup and chemicals, not proper syrup,” he informed me, and I could hear the amusement in his voice. Lord help me, he was as much a foodie as Owen.

“Hey, don’t knock the virtues of good ol’ Aunt Jemima. My momma raised me on the stuff,” I returned mildly, pouring more batter on the hot pan. “I think there’s honey on the top shelf in the pantry if that’s better.”

“Significantly.” Rob pulled the honey down. “Syrup comes from trees, you know. Not factories.”

“’Round here it mostly just comes from the grocery store,” I teased. I’d had the real thing a time or two, and while I was of a mind to agree with Rob, my family hadn’t been well off enough to afford it and I was fine with my maple-flavored pancake syrup. If he didn’t care for it, I didn’t mind swapping it out for honey, though.

Rob moved to set the table while I took the bacon off the heat and worked on the next round of pancakes. He’d made enough batter to feed half a dozen people, which was fine by me. Anything he didn’t eat, I would. I did steal a moment here and there for appreciative glances while he laid out plates and silverware. Rob was as unselfconscious about his nudity as any shapeshifter, and it would’ve been hard not to admire him even if I hadn’t been gay. I didn’t know a whole lot about the fae in general, but Owen had upped my education a bit when I’d taken the job at the track. It was a fair bet the Rob I was seeing wasn’t his true form, but it was still pretty nice to look at. If my observations bothered him, it didn’t show. Rob seemed more the sort to strut and preen under the attention than concern himself with modesty.

“Down,” he told Rosie when she sniffed hopefully at the table. He didn’t mean it, though. I caught him sneaking her a pancake, sending it sailing Frisbee style into the next room. Doggy toenails scrabbled on the worn hardwood floor as she went racing after it.

I shook my head and carried the rest of the food over to the table. Rob had set up two places, and had even found the orange juice in my fridge and poured a couple glasses. It was like, yet totally unlike when Owen shared meals with me. At least, while my mentor had a habit of showing up unannounced, he usually did it later in the day. Owen’s duties to the pack were a lot more important than checking up on me. And he was usually dressed.

“My dog’s gonna get fat with you around,” I said with a grin, taking my seat at the table. I could get used to sharing breakfast with a beautiful naked man.

Rob arched a brow and dimpled at me. “Not concerned about your own physique?” he teased as I forked a stack of pancakes onto my plate and followed it about half the bacon.

“Naw, werewolves can’t get fat,” I returned. “Eatin’ whatever I feel like is one of the few perks of the condition.”

“To say nothing of the killer abs,” Rob murmured appreciatively. “If you ever get tired of contacting, you could hire out as a washboard.”

“I’ll keep laundry appliance in mind if I start thinking about a change of careers,” I said and dug into my pancakes. The honey was a little different, but not bad, and the batter Rob had mixed up was far better than the box mix I usually sprung for. It was the closest thing to a perfect morning that I’d had since before the day I’d been attacked and Changed, and I wanted to savor every moment of it. I even let Rosie steal some of my bacon and didn’t chide the pup for it. And if I was a little slow to help Rob with the dishes, it was only because he made such a pretty picture rinsing out the cups in the sink. Oh yes, I could definitely get used to this.

“Do you have to work today?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “Next job picks up later this week. I have some paperwork to go through but I don’t have to go out.”

“Lucky,” he murmured with a smile.

“Does mean things can get lean between paychecks,” I replied, shrugging. “Usually things are regular enough to make ends meet. How ’bout you?”

“I work at the bar most days. It’s not the most exciting place in the world, but..."

“I bet some interesting people wander through,” I said.

Rob gave a half smile. “Horse races have that effect.”

“Yeah, I imagine they would. Not much of a bettin’ man, myself.” The only time I’d been to the track had been for the carpentry contract job where I’d met him in the first place.

"I don’t have to be there until eleven."

A glance at the clock over the stove told me it was just a little past eight. “That’s a few hours off, at least,” I offered.

Rob grinned. “Do you suppose we might find a way to pass the time?”

A slow smile grew on my face. “I think we might,” I replied lightly. “I’m game if you are.”

“I’m always game,” he laughed. Rob wasn’t playing me, either. Fae weren’t like humans, but I could still smell his interest.

“I like the sound of that.” Dropping the dish towel on the counter, I held a hand out to him in wordless invitation. Rob’s grin grew. He took my hand and performed a graceful twirl that wrapped my arm around his bare chest and put his back solidly up against the front of me. My body’s reaction was instant and involuntary, and hit me hard enough to make my knees go weak.

“That’s cheatin’,” I murmured, and got a sly look and a cat-in-cream smile from Rob for my trouble.

“I know,” he replied, sounding immensely pleased with himself. Rob squeezed my fingers, still tangled with his, and then let go and spun away. I had a moment to feel strangely bereft, and then he dropped a challenge in two words guaranteed to send my already ramped up libido into overdrive. “Catch me.”

 

 


	10. Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's enemies in the pack make their move and spring a trap on the hapless lone wolf.

Rob was going to be late for work given the time he finally left my house, but the morning had been so very worth it. I went about my daily routine in a daze, and reflected that it’d been a long, long time since I felt this good. We’d made plans to see each other again later in the week, which was fine by me. I might be buzzing, but I still needed some time to digest what this budding relationship meant, and sooner or later I’d have to tell Owen about it. He was as much my keeper as my mentor, and if I didn’t let him know he’d find out some other way. I didn’t know how he’d react to my taking up with one of the fae. Far as I understood it, there was some tension between the locals and the pack, but they didn’t seem to be at each other’s throats. It should be all right.

I didn’t want to call Owen today, though. I wanted a little more time to enjoy the feelings and memories before I did anything to put a damper on it. Rob had a mouth like sin and hands that damn near set my body on fire, not to mention the rest of him. If last night and this morning were the only bits of heaven I got to experience, the least I could do was enjoy the afterglow for a little while.

Paperwork took up most of my day, though my mind wasn’t really on it. The full moon was still close to a week out, though getting big enough to let me feel her pull every now and again, and between that and thoughts of Rob, I was thoroughly distracted. I had enough pent up energy to burn off by the day’s end to indulge myself in a run, but this time I didn’t feel the need for Rosie’s companionship. Leaving my dog comfortably ensconced in her kennel, I set out after full dark.

Lexington’s a good sized city for Kentucky, but once you get out to the suburbs where I live, it turns into rolling fields and forested land pretty quick. I Changed in my favorite patch of woods, leaving my clothes and shoes in a backpack tucked about twelve feet up a hollow tree where no one would come across them by accident. Changing shape is always agony, made worse by the fact that I had to put the required collar and tags around my neck before I shifted. Anything touching bare skin made the pain ten times more intense. It feels like an eternity, but in truth it only takes me about twenty minutes to shift from man to wolf. I shook the last stinging tingles from my patchy colored fur, dog tags jingling around my neck, and bounded off into the woods to enjoy the wolf’s freedom.

I had made sure to eat well before I headed out, so my wolf was less interested in hunting than in exploring. I tracked a couple of rabbits across a moonlit field, leaving off when they hid in a thorny hedge. Since I wasn’t really pack, I didn’t have a well defined territory the way the local wolves did, but there were places I liked to visit when I ran. I was careful to avoid any scent marked places that indicated the pack had been around. So it caught me off guard when I rounded the corner of a sagging old barn on an abandoned property and found myself almost muzzle to muzzle with three of Alec’s wolves. The wind had been blowing the wrong direction and I didn’t smell the musk and mint of werewolf until it was already too late.

Owen and prudence had taught me the proper response in these situations was to hightail it elsewhere. While conventional wisdom said running from predators was foolish, I had a better chance of outrunning three other werewolves than I did outfighting them. Three on one was a good way to get myself killed. I saw teeth flash and heard the rumble of warning growls, and turned tail immediately. This had happened a time or two in my decade or so as a lone wolf. As long as I kept running and headed away from their territory, they’d eventually get bored with chasing me, leave off, and go home. Let them think I was a coward. I just didn’t have a death wish. My wolf was big, lean, and fast, and I’d learned to set a ground-eating pace that wouldn’t wear away my stamina too quickly.

The hunt was eerily silent. Werewolves don’t make a lot of noise as a general rule, but it was as if someone had thrown a blanket of quiet over the night, stifling even the evening birds and nocturnal animals. I’d been running for a good five or ten minutes through that unnatural lack of noise before I realize it was pack magic, one of the few innate abilities any werewolves could call up if there were enough of them. On my lonesome I couldn’t summon it, but Alec’s wolves could, and were using it against me. That was new. Usually they just snapped at my heels for a few miles to show me who was boss.

All my attempts to circle wide around the pack’s territory were thwarted. Any time I tried to turn from my path, one of the trio hunting me would rush my flank, forcing me back in the other direction. They were herding me, but where I wasn’t sure until I broke free of the brush onto a set of railroad tracks. My pursuers made me criss-cross the tracks half a dozen times, pushing me further along their length until I gave up and took off full speed down straight down the center. My best hope was not to meet a train.

I gained a little distance once I went to a flat out run. I didn’t know what Alec’s wolves were up to, but they’d chased me further from home than ever before. Guess my existence was more offensive than usual. I wondered briefly if they could smell Rob’s scent on me and that was cause enough. I wasn’t about to stop and ask.

The tracks were further out than I usually ran, so I wasn’t certain where they were chasing me until the woods opened out and dropped away sharply, leaving me running on just the wooden ties high above the Kentucky River. They’d chased me all the way to High Bridge. The trestle wasn’t meant for foot traffic. There were no railings and no walkway, and the river was a three hundred foot drop. It was also my chance to leave my attackers behind. If I could sprint across I had a chance of getting away, and I didn’t think they’d keep following so far from their normal stomping grounds.

Halfway across I realized my mistake when two more werewolves stepped out of the brush on the far side of the river to block my path. This wasn’t just a random hunt, it was an ambush. If three on one had been bad odds, five on one was suicide, but I didn’t have any choice but to fight them. The wolves at the other side of the river advanced toward me, backing me across the weathered boards. I kept my head down and snarled back at them. I ain’t submissive, but I’d spent years being told not to make trouble with the pack. This time they weren’t going to let me off, though. The ambush was too damn calculated for that.

I could hear my original three pursuers approaching from the rear. There was no where to go on the narrow bridge, so I decided to bring the fight to them instead. The long run had tired me out, and I would only get one shot.

Somebody must have gotten tired of waiting. The boards bounced under my paws as one of the wolves behind me broke into a run. I was out of time. The two wolves in front of me were slightly better odds, but I was winded and they were fresh and rested, so instead I whirled on the one coming at me. His snap at my ear missed by a fraction when I dipped my shoulder and blocked him low in the chest. My wolf’s big just like the rest of me, and I used that size to my advantage. He’d expected me to attack, not deflect him, and his momentum carried him past me at a sharp angle.

Claws scrabbled at the weathered wood, but werewolves are lacking in thumbs. For a second I thought he might recover, but then he lost his tenuous grip and went over the edge. A short, sharp howl broke through the pack magic’s spell of silence and there was a faint splash from far below. The rest of the pack sang their grief and fury, and my reprieve was over. Teeth and claws bit into my skin through the thick coat of fur as they all piled on at once.

I fought back, thrashing and snapping while trying to keep my vulnerable points out of harm’s reach. Someone set their teeth in my hind leg and dragged me backwards while I struggled to keep my throat free of fangs. I hadn’t attacked them. I’d never hurt a one of them, but that didn’t matter to these wolves. Someone rammed me hard in the side, and a foot slipped, dangling over empty air. I tried to dig my claws into the wood, but they bit at my paws until I lost my hold and fell.

Freefall lasted a heart-stopping eternity before the black surface of the river reached up to smack me with a blow as hard as landing on icy concrete. I had tried to twist, cat-like, as I fell, but was only partially successful. A shock of pain jarred all the way up my spine and I felt bone give way in one of my legs and my chest. The cold water chilled the sizzle of agony almost instantly, as the river swallowed me up. Werewolves can’t swim, no fat for buoyancy. I sank, and an involuntary breath sucked water into my lungs. Darkness and pain nibbled away at what remained of my consciousness, and my only consolation was that it would all be over soon, and at least I’d managed to take one of the bastards with me on the way down.

 

 


	11. Owen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A packmember's death leaves the Blue Grass Pack reeling. Owen investigates along with his Alpha, and discovers that not only is Sam involved, but things are far more complicated than they seem.

Owen expected a bloodbath when he drove up the circle drive, but all he found was Collin’s boring sedan. He parked right behind it and didn’t bother closing the door in his hurry to get inside.

He’d been at the shop checking the books when he’d felt Matt die. The whole pack had felt it – but they weren’t there, and they should have been. Matt was an idiot, but he was _their_ idiot. Owen raged up the steps and into the study.

Alec was seated behind the desk, fully dressed for once, and with his feet on the floor rather than the polished mahogany that deserved better than his lapse of manners. “Owen,” he growled. The other wolf ducked his head to the side and presented his throat as soon as he saw the wolf in Alec’s eyes.

“What happened?” Owen asked, taking a seat in one of the decorative chairs in front of the desk. Now was not the time to have his head higher than his Alpha’s.

“Matt died,” Alec rumbled.

“About ten minutes ago,” Collin added, walking into the room with a snifter of brandy. The pack second was dour at his best, but at the moment he looked downright grim. “South of here. He was with others, but none of them are answering their phones. They were out hunting.”

“An accident?” Owen asked cautiously.

Alec shook his head. “Too much anger.”

Matt’s death had reverberated through the pack bonds, but Alec as their Alpha would have caught the worst of it. Collin fetched several cut crystal glasses from the sideboard and splashed brandy into them. He passed the first to Alec and handed Owen the second, keeping the third for himself. It wasn’t nearly enough alcohol to get a werewolf drunk. Nothing could do that. Still, it was bracing. Alec stared into his glass with an expression even Owen couldn’t read, and he thought he’d known all of them. It wasn’t like Alec to ignore a drink in favor of introspection.

Collin finished off his own drink and thumped the glass down with a harsh breath. For all he was a fairly reserved wolf, there was murderous intent in his gaze. “We need to go and deal with whatever killed Matt,” he prompted Alec.

Alec set the glass aside. “No,” he countered. “I need you here to keep the girls safe. Get Marlow.”

“He’s on his way.” Owen had called him on the drive out from Lexington.

“When he gets here, we’ll go,” Alec said, his angry golden gaze on me. “Owen, myself, and Marlow. Collin, you’ll keep things together here until we return.”

“Yes, sir,” Collin replied, and Owen picked up both a little surprise and relief from him through the pack bonds. It was hard to blame him for his feelings. They had all grown accustomed to an Alpha who was only half there, and Collin had long been picking up the slack when Alec wouldn’t. Direct orders like this had been rare in recent years. It had been a long time since Alec had fully engaged with the rest of the pack over anything. Owen wasn’t sure what it meant for the pack. The last time Alec had paid attention, it had been unpleasant to say the least.

“You want me there?” Owen asked carefully. Alec growled, and he shut up.

It took Marlow another ten or fifteen minutes to arrive, by which time Alec had left his desk to pace the floor. Collin and Owen watched, mute and tense. Neither of them had the poor sense to interrupt their Alpha on a tear. The pack third stopped just inside the door of Alec’s office, picking up on the rage and frustration that filled the air. Marlow’s eyebrows crawled toward his hairline, and he glanced to Collin, who just shrugged and looked back to Alec.

“Owen called me,” Marlow said. “I felt—”

“Matt is dead,” Alec broke in, biting each word off. “We’re going to find out why. Come.”

Owen stood without a word and left the study. Having Alec at his back in a black rage was distinctly uncomfortable, but he didn’t have much choice. Alec was Alpha.

Pack bonds weren’t quite like a GPS. With some effort, they could feel and find each other, but the feelings didn’t come with a road map. It took them almost forty-five minutes to finally reach the spot where Matt’s death had left a hole in their ties to each other, and they had to go the last leg of the trip on foot.

“High Bridge?” Marlow commented when Alec parked in the scenic overlook lot for the historic old train bridge. Owen remembered when the first one had been built, but this newer one was even higher. “Why would they have come all the way out here? Was Matt suicidal?”

“Not that I know of,” Owen murmured. He hadn’t been particularly close to the wolf in question. Their Alpha said nothing, just climbed out of his car and slammed the door before stalking toward the train bridge. Marlow and Owen followed, letting Alec take the lead. Once they’d climbed up the gravel embankment to the rail line, Owen stopped in his tracks.

“Sam,” he said. “Sam was here.”

“And Matt, and Geoffrey, and Roger,” Alec snarled.

“They were chasing him,” Owen growled, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Sam was _his_. Had been his since an old member of the pack had Changed him in Owen’s place of business out of frustration that Owen hadn’t been there for him to attack.

Alec ignored Owen and headed out onto the bridge. Dry wood wasn’t the best medium to hold onto scents, but the altercation here had happened little more than an hour before, and though the blood had time to dry, the scent was still palpable. Owen caught faint hints of all three wolves Alec had named, and two more besides. Five of their wolves had been here, along with Sam.

“Your wolf’s trail ends here,” Alec said softly.

Owen knelt to touch the fresh wolf claw marks in the wood. All the blood spilled belonged to Sam. “They chased him here. They ambushed him.”

Marlow cleared his throat. “Y’want us to go check the river, boss?”

Owen’s phone vibrated in his back pocket, but he ignored it. The phone didn’t matter. Sam was a werewolf by force - his fault. And now Sam was dead.

“The bodies will wash up somewhere downstream,” Owen heard Alec say, his voice tight with anger. “We’ll need to be prepared when that happens.”

“And the others who were involved?” Marlow asked.

“I’ll deal with them.”

The phone stopped buzzing, and immediately started up again. Owen had half a mind to crush the stupid, expensive thing, and toss it into the river after the poor wolf he’d spent more than a decade looking after.

“Owen, answer that goddamned thing, or turn it off,” Alec snapped at him.

Swallowing a growl, Owen dug the phone out of his pocket. It was still buzzing insistently. He stabbed the accept button without looking at the number. “What?” He barked.

The voice that came from the phone was sweet and rich and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “A man can die but once; we owe God a death.”

“Who is this?” Owen demanded. His voice made Alec’s head come up, the Alpha’s nostrils flaring like a hunting dog looking for a scent. He and Marlow would hear anything the speaker said. Werewolves did not have private phone calls.

The stranger chuckled darkly. “I am that merry wanderer of the night.”

Owen knew the quotes, both of them, but he was rattled and hurting. They were all hurting. Their pack had lost a wolf tonight, and he had lost Sam. “Speak English,” he snapped.

“I jest to Oberon and make him smile when I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile. You know the rest,” the man said, breaking abruptly from the verse. “For shame, Wolf. You treat your kin as we treated mortals, long ago.”

“Fae,” Owen growled.

“Aye,” the voice confirmed, dark with anger. “You do not deserve him. None of you do. Had he not asked it of me, I would have spirited him away to safety and left none of you the wiser, but he asked and I will not deny him.”

“Won’t deny _who_?” Owen snarled.

“Sam.”

“Sam is dead,” Owen countered. A werewolf might survive the fall, but not the river.

“Thou art some fool,” the fae purred, and the line went dead.

Owen was left staring at his phone and wondering if he dared hope this was more than some ill-timed faerie game.

“Uh, I didn’t catch all of that,” Marlow ventured. “Was he saying your Sam is still alive? That this fae has him?”

“Yes.”

“Where,” Alec growled.

Owen thought furiously. “He said he hadn’t taken Sam away yet, which means not their stronghold. Sam’s home.” Maybe. It was a guess at best. He wasn’t fae and could only approximate how one might think. The fae seemed to be honoring whatever Sam had told him, had he been telling the truth. Owen didn’t think they could lie.

“Back to the car,” the Alpha ordered. They went.

Sam’s house should have been at least a thirty minute drive from their location. Alec made it in half that, and by some miracle no one pulled them over. Marlow may have had something to do with that. It was handy at times to have a wolf in the pack who was also a US marshall. Though never formally made part of the pack, Sam had lived with them for his first year, until Alec was satisfied he had enough control to survive as a lone wolf. That had been the last time Owen had seen his Alpha stir himself to deal with issues that affected the pack. Owen hadn’t known Alec knew Sam’s address.

They pulled up out front and parked by the curb. Another car was parked in the driveway, a classic black model from the mid-fifties. Owen knew Alec was taking this seriously when he didn’t stop to drool over the car. He gave the classic sedan all the attention he would normally pay a flea on his way into the house. Owen was hard on his heels, with Marlow bringing up the rear.

The lights in the house were all on, blazing like the sun. A trail of blood led them into the front room. If Sam was still bleeding after being brought all the way from High Bridge, the damage was very, very bad. Sammy was not a submissive wolf, and a dominant should have been healing by now, but he had no pack to draw on, no Alpha to feed him power. The house smelled of Sam and his dog, but also of blood and pain, and strongly of the river and forest.

Sam was laid out on his couch, and the knitted afghan tucked over him did little to disguise the bruising and half-healed gashes on his exposed skin, tooth and claw marks left by the wolves who had attacked him. That he was in human form was a good sign, even if his breathing was shallow and his heartbeat stuttered. Owen stopped to stare, and that was a mistake.

Alec crossed the room in three seconds flat, flipping his knife open on the way. He sliced a strip of flesh from his arm before Owen had his breath, forcing it between Sam’s teeth. Alpha’s flesh and blood would bind him to the pack whether he willed it or no.

That was when the fae that Owen’s nose had been insistently telling him about appeared from thin air and threw Alec across the room. Most of the fae wore glamours to make themselves appear to be more human, but this one wasn’t bothering with the niceties. Owen couldn’t get a handle on his height, but he was beautiful. Tall and lean and tan with broad shoulders and whorls of gold up and down his bared skin that matched his long, straight hair. His locks were brushed back behind ears that tapered to a distinct point. He narrowed his jewel bright emerald green eyes and hissed at them.

Marlow helped Alec up while Owen stood frozen. Having one of the fae defend Sam, a werewolf, from _them_ was utterly ridiculous, and yet he had placed himself firmly between the wolves and the couch.

“I fished him from that river,” the fae growled. “I saved his life. What claim have you, his kin, who reject him from what should be the center of his beating heart?”

“I claim him,” Alec snarled back. “Mine to me and mine. Pack!”

On the couch, Sam’s body bowed suddenly upward and he gasped for air like a drowning man as the magic took hold. He hadn’t been conscious when they entered, but the binding ceremony had shocked him awake when Alec made him part of the pack. With it came the sense of Sam’s ebbing strength and all the hurts that had been done him. He was worse off than Owen had initially thought, and even binding him might not be enough.

“Sammy,” Owen murmured in dismay, but when the hurt wolf’s eyes focused, it wasn’t Owen or Alec that he reached for. It was the fae.

“Rob?” Sam’s voice was as cracked and broken as the rest of him. “I had a dream about you,” he mumbled, and the fae turned to clasp his poor mauled hand.

“I’m here,” the fae said in a different voice. “You need to rest.”

“Feel like I swallowed a live wire,” Sam said, and laughed, or tried to. It came out more a wheeze that turned into a cough. “Ow,” he concluded.

The fae stroked long, lean fingers over Sam’s face. Owen felt like someone had put an anvil on each of his eyelids and saw Marlow sway. “Sleep.” Only Alec’s snarl of rage kept him on his feet. Sam was completely out again when the fae rose from the couch, the hurt wolf’s limp hand still in his grasp.

“Mine,” Alec growled, “not yours. Get away from him.”

“You whose wolves attacked him, claim him.” The fae laughed at them, laughed at the Alpha. “I think not.”

“This wasn’t Alec’s doing,” Marlow protested.

“Is an Alpha not responsible for the actions of his wolves?” the fae taunted.

“Yes,” Alec ground out, “and there will be repercussions for tonight’s actions.”

“There will indeed.” The golden skinned man looked down his nose at them.

Owen couldn’t let Alec take the blame for this. “This is my fault,” he spoke up. “Sam is my responsibility, mine to look after, and I failed him.”

The fae looked at him, really looked at him, and Owen was left with the uncomfortable sensation that he could see right through him.

“It won’t happen again. He’s ours. Pack.”

The fae sneered. “Only now, after you have waited how long to claim him? To leave this kindly soul to languish for years with no reprieve, no hope, and take him in only when it suits your purpose is the worst hypocrisy. By all rights I should have allowed you to believe him drowned in the river and taken him to my bosom instead. At least there he would have joy and find peace. But even with all the wrongs he suffered at your hands, he would not speak against you, and bade me contact you. For that reason alone, I honored the wishes of Samson Douglas Willoughby, though I am sore displeased with thee, wolves.”

Fae collected names, and this fae’s use of Sam’s full name made the hairs rise on the back of Owen’s neck. It wasn’t coincidental, the fae reminding them of Sam’s kinship to Alec, however distant. Owen had seen faeries spitting mad before, but never over something like this. Never over one of them. The only place Sam could have come into contact with one of them was that carpentry job he’d mentioned to Owen almost a month prior, the one at the racetrack the fae owned. Had he gotten himself entangled in some sort of bargain or contract despite Owen’s warnings? That didn’t feel right, though. This wasn’t just one of the fae trying to get one over on Alec. This had the hallmarks of deeply, personally aggrieved honor.

“Nevertheless,” Alec said coldly, “Sam is my wolf now. Perhaps you’re correct and he should have been from the start, but he is mine now. That is not up for debate. Leave us so that I may tend my wolf.”

The fae snarled a wordless threat at the Alpha. “Please," Owen added. “As a boon to Sam.”

“I will have your oath, Alistair Willoughby who is Alpha of the Bluegrass Pack, that there will be no repetition of this night’s events,” the fae hissed. “Else your bond is forfeit. Look to your children, Alpha, or someone more capable will do it for you.”

“I intend to,” Alec replied. “And I will give you my word. Sam will be looked after, and the ones who did this to him reckoned with. All of them.”

The fae stared at him for a heartbeat beyond what was healthy. “Accepted,” he said. He moved like a slow, old thing when he lowered Sam’s hand to the blankets tucked over top of their wounded boy. Owen didn’t breathe again until he left, shutting the door behind him.

As soon as the fae was gone, Alec moved to the couch to check on Sam. Marlow let out a breath and ran a hand over his hair. “Who the hell was he, anyway?” the pack third asked.

“You didn’t really think one of the fae would give just a name or straight answer, did you?” Owen answered, though it got him thinking about what the fae had first said when he answered his phone. “I am that merry wanderer of the night,” Owen murmured.

“That’s… Shakespeare, right?” Marlow said. “What’s a damn fairie doing quoting Shakespeare at us, anyway?”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Owen said. “Sam called him Rob. One of the characters in that play is Robin Goodfellow.”

“Who?”

“Puck,” Alec said, though his voice was distant as his hands traced the bites and claw marks and bruises that mottled Sam’s skin. “Though whether merely a puck, or _the_ Puck is unclear.”

“There’s a difference?” Marlow asked, pacing over to look out the front window.

“Oh yes,” Owen murmured. “Mostly in age and power. Given that he nearly put us to sleep on our feet when his spell was only aimed at Sam, I’m inclined to lean toward the latter. This one is dangerous, Alec.”

“He seemed pretty worked up over our boy there,” Marlow added.

“Aren’t we all?” Alec growled. He gathered Sam’s unconscious body to his chest, blanket and all. Sam was not a small man, but his weight made no difference to a werewolf.

A faint whine from the rear of the house reminded Owen that Sam didn’t quite live alone. He went to let Sam’s coonhound out of her kennel while Alec carried her injured master out to the car. Snapping the lead on her collar, Owen brought her out along with him. Rosie was Sam’s family, too, and he’d rest better if he knew she’d been seen to.

“Marlow, you drive,” Alec ordered, climbing into the back seat of his own car with Sam. The big fancy Cadillac that had been parked in the drive was already gone.

The fit was a little awkward, with the four of them and Sam’s dog, but they managed. Rosie sat on the floor of the front passenger’s side and laid her head in Owen’s lap. He rubbed the coonhound’s dark, silky ears and ruminated on the night’s events while Marlow drove them home.

Their pack had lost a member tonight, and would lose more in short order. Alec had given the fae his word. The wolves who had stalked Sam would pay for their actions with their lives. Sam belonged to the pack now, but at what cost? There would still be those who refused to accept him, only now he would feel their distaste at an intensely personal level. The bullying had to stop, or Alec’s oath to the fae wouldn’t hold. Owen didn’t know a great deal about Puck, but he had a feeling this fae would hold their Alpha to his word or enact his own consequences, and poor Sammy would be the one caught in the crossfire no matter what happened.

 


	12. Messages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is on the mend, though his memories of the attack and fall are scrambled... And Rob isn't answering his phone.

“Really, Owen, I’m doin’ just fine now,” I told my perpetual minder. Three weeks. It was hard to believe that’s all the time that had passed since my life turned completely upside down. The folks who I was scheduled to work for all believed I’d been caught in a hit and run car accident, and given the damage I was dealing with, it wasn’t far wrong. Owen just looked at me. There were days I thought he’d taken the whole thing harder than me. He wasn’t keeping up with his usual cosmetics, and I hadn’t seen a single pretty dress.

“Sammy, you can barely walk,” he pointed out. I fingered the head of the cane resting against my couch.

“I can get around,” I insisted. “My ribs’re mended. It’s just takin’ a little longer for the busted femur and cracked pelvis to sort themselves out. So long as I don’t fall off anymore bridges, they should heal up fine.”

Owen paced the worn carpet in front of the coffee table. “You’re not well yet. You shouldn’t push yourself so quickly. I could take you back to Alec’s. The pack—”

“With one or two exceptions, the pack don’t like me,” I reminded him mildly. “And some of ’em like me even less given what happened.”

“None of that was your fault, Sammy.”

It was so weird being able to _feel_ the emotions behind the words now. Owen’s guilt leaked through to me despite the earnest face he was giving me. The chase, the bridge, the fall… All of it seemed like some distant nightmare, now. I’d been out of it for a couple days afterward, and when I woke up I found myself in a guest room in the Alpha’s home, part of the pack, connected to a whole host of thoughts and feelings from a bunch of people I barely knew. A lot of those feelings were hostile.

“I know it wasn’t, but they can’t help the way they feel anymore than I can help bein’ myself. They lost five packmates, and they got stuck with me in exchange,” I told Owen. “It’s better for everybody if I ain’t underfoot right now. Gives folks a chance to calm down.”

Owen blew out an exasperated breath and flopped gracefully into my armchair. “I suppose you have a point,” he admitted unhappily. “But they almost killed you, Sammy.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, shifting with unease. “That’s the one thing nobody’s given me a straight answer on. I remember everythin’ up to fallin’ off that bridge, the fight and all that, but how’d I get out of the river? Ain’t no way I could’ve done it myself, and it ain’t like any of you could’ve gone in after me without drownin’, yourselves. So who got me out?” I’d left that line of questioning alone while I’d been in Alec’s home. It’d been pretty clear neither the Alpha nor those closest to him had wanted to talk about it. What I thought I recalled didn’t make much damn sense, so I needed someone who’d been conscious to fill in the details for me.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see you until you were out of the river.”

I frowned at him. It wasn’t quite a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth, either. “Well somebody pulled me out and brought me here,” I prompted. “I can still smell my own blood and river water on the couch.” Somebody had come and cleaned things while I’d been convalescing at the Alpha’s home, but I knew my own house. “If you know somethin’, Owen, why don’t you just say so? Why shouldn’t I know who saved my life?”

“Alec and the pack saved your life,” he replied.

“Alec bound me to the pack and kept me from dyin’ until my body had a chance to heal,” I agreed. “And I’m properly grateful to the Alpha for keepin’ me alive, but Alec didn’t pull me outta that river.”

“Sammy… It would be better if you just let this one go.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. I owe my life to someone aside from Alec and the pack. That’s kind of a big deal to me, Owen.”

“Of all the bloody minded, obstinate fools,” Owen growled, climbing out of the chair in irritation.

I frowned at him, frustrated. I couldn’t figure out why they were so set on not telling me who my rescuer had been. It mattered to me, even if it didn’t to anyone else. I was tired of being kept in the dark. That was one thing, I’d discovered, that hadn’t really changed at all just because I’d joined the pack. It just meant the authority structure was more directly involved in my life now.

“We went to a lot of work to keep you alive, and you just want to—to what, to throw it away? Faugh!” Owen threw his hands in the air. “You’re nearly as bad as Alec!”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How exactly would knowing who got me out of the river make me want to throw my life away?”

I don’t think Owen heard me, he was so involved his rant. “He threatened to take you away to faerieland! I’ve never seen one of their kind face down Alec in a rage before, and he was in a rage, make no mistake of that—”

“He— What—? _Owen_.” I struggled to piece together the subtext behind what he was saying. I only really knew one fae, and I couldn’t imagine Rob doing what Owen described. “You mean to tell me _Rob_ was the one who got me out? I thought I dreamed that part.”

“You’d be healthier wishing it were a bloody dream! Of all the twinkly-winged, sing-songy little bug-eyed bastards, you had to befriend _that_ one!” Owen groaned, sinking back into my armchair. His hair was in disarray. I’ve seen that man buck naked under a full moon after hunting down a twelve-point buck without a hair out of place.

“I like Rob,” I protested. “I was careful, like I promised. No invitations, no bargains, none of that. We just kinda hit it off. It was nice havin’ somebody to spend time with.”

Owen peered at me from beneath the hand shading his brow. “You did more than simply spend time together. I did your laundry and changed the sheets on your bed while you were convalescing. And you haven’t a clue who he really is, have you?”

“Yeah, well I figured you wouldn’t want to hear about that part.” My face had heated, but I shrugged and continued. “His name is Rob Goodfellow. He bartends at the track where I did all that cabinet and trim work.”

“Sam, Robin Goodfellow is _Puck_ ,” Owen told me, speaking as if I were a particularly slow child.

“Beg pardon?” I asked, not catching the reference.

“My God, you’re as thick as Marlow. Do they not teach Shakespeare in schools anymore?”

“I remember a few lines from Romeo and Juliette, and a little Hamlet, but that was kinda a long time ago, Owen,” I said. “And I was better at shop class than English.”

“Puck. Servant to a fairy queen. Not a _minor_ fairy queen, _Titania_ the fairy queen. Or Oberon,” he said after a moment. “I can’t recall. No matter.”

“So… That’s bad?” Rob hadn’t seemed bad to me. Maybe a little amoral, but not bad.

“He’s very powerful,” Owen said through clenched teeth.

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t wanna hurt me,” I pointed out.

Owen groaned.

“No, hear me out,” I said. “When Rob and I met, I wasn’t anything to Alec or the pack. Maybe to you, but not the rest. Most of ’em wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if I just up and vanished. I’m—I was just a lone wolf, not particularly strong, not tied to anybody important. I don’t remember a whole lot after I fell in the river, and what I do recall is pretty fuzzy, but he had to have gotten me to change back. He must’ve called you, let you know what happened, otherwise Alec couldn’t’ve bound me. Rob didn’t have to do that. He could’ve let me drown, or taken me away to fairyland like you said, and y’all would just think I’d died in the river. He didn’t.”

“We don’t know why he decided to play the altruist,” he grumbled, but I could tell he was listening to me.

“No, we don’t,” I agreed. “And I don’t know that I’d get a straight answer, but I could always ask him.”

“Alec doesn’t want you seeing him anymore,” Owen warned me, and my stomach sank. Even when I hadn’t been pack, the Alpha’s word was law.

“Is that an order?” I asked. I couldn’t disobey a direct order from Alec even if I wanted to.

“It should be,” Owen muttered.

Relief flooded through me. As long as I hadn’t been directly forbidden from seeing or contacting Rob, I could still get in touch with him. What I didn’t know was if he’d have any continuing interest in seeing _me_ after this whole mess.

“I’ll be careful,” I promised.

“Sammy, your definition of careful got you thrown off a bridge,” Owen pointed out, his tone acidic.

“More careful,” I asserted.

“Your grammar is terrible,” he complained.

“Public school education.” I stared at the carpet for a few long moments and fiddled with my cane. Walking stick came closer to describing it. Alec had given it to me to help me move around until my leg finished healing up. The thing was antique and way too fancy for a plain guy like me, but it supported my weight when I needed it to. “Owen, I’m sorry I caused y’all so much trouble.”

Owen sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “You didn’t cause this trouble. We did.” He rubbed his face. “ _I_ did.”

“How do you figure?” I asked. “You’ve done the best you could to look after me all these years, talked to Alec on my behalf, kept the pack from just flat out runnin’ me off or killin’ me. Sure, things coulda been different, but forcin’ the pack to accept me was never gonna win me many friends, not then and not now.”

“That fae shamed us with our actions concerning you,” Owen said. “Alec won’t soon forget that, even though it was our own wolves and not the fae that forced his hand in adding you to the pack.”

“I don’t think I was ever going to be one of Alec’s favorite people,” I replied.

“That’s not the point.” Owen frowned at me. “We should have done more for you. Shouldn’t have left you out in the cold because of something you can’t change. _I_ should have done more to look after you. We should have realized what that bunch were up to when they started hunting you.”

“Owen, that’s all over and done with now. There ain’t nothin’ either of us can do to change the past, just learn from it and live with it. You taught me that years ago, the first time I woke up in Alec’s house after massive trauma.” I gave him a crooked smile. I liked Owen. I’d always liked Owen, and he always tried to do his best by me. It hurt to see him tear himself up over shit he wasn’t responsible for. I’d been learning werewolves seemed to feel responsible for a lotta things they couldn’t change or fix, though.

Owen laughed, but there was a bitter tinge to it. He ran a hand over his face. “Your Rob was right, Sammy. We don’t deserve you.” He leaned over to squeeze the knee of my uninjured leg.

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just covered his hand with my own. Touch helps a lot with reassurance, and right then I wasn’t sure which of us needed it more. “I’m getting too old for this,” Owen sighed.

“You? Never.” I had no idea how old Owen really was, though sometimes he talked like somebody from one of those historical dramas PBS liked to play. With werewolves it could be hard to tell. I certainly didn’t look like a man in my mid-forties. Owen had looked all of twenty when he found me, and he looked even younger, now.

“Where werewolves are concerned, there is never a never,” Owen told me gently. “Remember that.”

“I won’t forget,” I promised him.

“Good.” He patted my knee and stood. “I’m going to make lunch. _Stay_.”

“Owen-.” I began with a touch of exasperation. He shook his head firmly.

“You need rest until those bones have mended. You will _sit_ and _stay_ until you’re better, and let me handle the rest.” And with that, he turned and headed for my kitchen.

I sighed, but I stayed put. He wasn’t wrong, and it did still hurt if I tried to stand for too long. Curled up on the carpet beside the couch, Rosie raised her head and gave me a doggy grin when I reached to ruffle her ears. She was delighted with my enforced bed rest, even if I wasn’t. Taking care of her while I’d been out was another thing I could thank Owen for. How many other folks would have even remembered to bring my dog along? As soon as the scent of cooking food reached us, however, she got up and trotted off to beg Owen for treats.

Music reached me from the direction of the kitchen. Owen had turned the radio on out there. Dimly, I could hear him talking to Rosie, but the noise kept me from hearing exactly what he was saying. It took a few seconds to sink in that Owen was giving me some privacy, whether intentionally or otherwise. Maybe he just liked the pop-country station.

My cellphone lay on the end table within reach, and the battery was still more than half charged. I hesitated for a moment, and then pulled up the number Rob had given me. I didn’t breathe while I listened to it ring. It went half a dozen times before it clicked over to voicemail, sending a little twinge of disappointment through me as I listened to the generic canned greeting. I considered hanging up. There was no way of knowing if he’d ever get back to me, but I had to try. I waited for the beep.

“Hey Rob,” I said, unable to keep a nervous flutter out of my voice. “Sorry I ain’t had a chance to get in touch with you sooner. The last couple weeks have been… Well, you know. I wanted to let you know I’m home now, and… And I’d really like to see you again, if… if you’re okay with that. I… Let me know one way or the other, I guess.” I swallowed, and another thought occurred to me. “Oh, and Owen’s stayin’ with me right now, just until I get back on my feet. Didn’t want to surprise you with that. Talk to you soon, I hope.”

I ended the call feeling like an idiot. Rob had had to save my stupid ass and drag me out of a river more than half dead. I hadn’t really had a say in joining the pack since I hadn’t been conscious at the time, but that added another layer of complications. And if he’d really told off Alec while I was out, Rob might not want anything to do with me ever again. I’d met his boss… if that was the right term for it. Or at least someone higher up the food chain than he was. Rob had his own problems, and it wasn’t really fair to involve him in mine.

 


	13. Pancakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owen lets up on Sam a little... Sam wishes Rob were there to make pancakes again.

I was too damn restless by half. Another week had passed, and Rob hadn’t returned a single one of my calls, and it was making me crazy. After Owen caught me out in my garage workshop trying to get a mitre saw going, my minder threw in the towel and let me out of the house under his supervision. I hadn’t had a babysitter since I’d been a new wolf, but Owen was more tolerable than most. The only thing he was directly against was my going down to the track to look for Rob.

“You can’t just waltz into fairyland and start asking questions, Sammy,” he scolded me. “Information is something the fae hold especially dear. You’ll end up owing them your firstborn in exchange for a simple answer that probably won’t tell you what you want to know anyway.”

“That’d be a neat trick, since I’m gay,” I replied dryly.

Owen threw up his hands. “You know what I mean. You’re pack now, and in my charge. If I lose you to them it could start a war.”

“I don’t want that,” I insisted, running my fingers through my disheveled hair. It was starting to get a little long for my taste. “I just… I need to know that he’s okay, that saving me didn’t cause trouble for him.”

“It probably did,” Owen remarked sourly. “But your paramour isn’t human, Sammy. He’s old and powerful, and the fae aren’t in the habit of wasting those they find useful. The ones he answers to won’t have done anything he wouldn’t survive.”

“That ain’t exactly reassuring, Owen,” I grumped. Visions of Rob locked up somewhere, being punished for helping me, sprang to mind.

“There’s nothing you can do for him right now, Sammy.” Owen patted my shoulder. “You can come with me to do the grocery shopping. Getting out of this house for a bit will make you feel better.”

“If you say so.” I let him herd me into his car, which was a sight nicer than my battered but serviceable work truck. Owen fussed over my seatbelt and made sure the cane was tucked in next to me. My cracked and broken bones had continued to mend, but I wasn’t sure the hip joint was ever going to be the same again, despite the werewolf’s immense healing abilities.

The grocery was an experience, to say the least. Owen wanted me to ride around in one of those little motorized carts and acted hurt when I refused. Not only was it not very dignified, but I don’t really fit in them. We compromised on my pushing a regular cart, the cane hooked over the handle just in case. It gave me something to lean on when I needed it, and didn’t make me look completely ridiculous.

I followed Owen obediently around the store while he filled up the cart with this and that. If nothing else, the past few weeks had been some of the best eating I’d had in years. My own cooking ain’t bad, but Owen made an art out of it.

When we got to the aisle with the breakfast foods, I stopped him when he reached for the bottle of pancake syrup I usually bought.

“No, not that one. The brown jug on the bottom shelf,” I said, and felt my face heat when he gave me an arch look.

“The real thing? My my, maybe your tastes are maturing after all, Sammy,” he said, and added the bottle of real maple syrup to the groceries in the cart.

“Rob teased me for not having the real stuff on hand,” I admitted, and knew my face was flaming red. I’d just inadvertently admitted it hadn’t been an evening fling and Rob had stayed for breakfast afterward. It wasn’t so much that I was embarrassed by Owen knowing that, but it was nobody’s business but me and Rob what we’d done together.

Owen just looked at me for a moment, scarcely long enough that I could see a smile. “We’ll need flour and eggs to make the cakes from scratch.”

“What cakes?” I asked, following him down the next aisle where he busily added baking supplies.

“Pancakes. If you’re getting real syrup, you can’t possibly use a box mix, my dear boy.”

“Oh, right.” Owen seemed to be in a better mood today, or at least feeling less guilty about my circumstances. My mind wasn’t really on shopping, though. I kept wondering if I’d ever get to see Rob again, or thank him for what he’d done for me. I knew Owen had warned me never to thank the fae because of the implied obligation, but I did owe Rob. I owed him my life, at least. That deserved a thank you.

 

 


	14. Surprise Visits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rob still isn't returning Sam's phone calls, but someone else shows up to explain why, and to put an offer on the table.

When I proved I could handle the grocery store without dropping dead, I’d expected Owen to loosen the tether. Instead, he decided I could continue recovering at his hat shop downtown. I’m not ashamed of how I dress, but I knew a hulking man in denim and flannel had no place in among Owen’s fancy hats.

I was content to sit quietly behind the counter and watch while he fussed over and nattered with his clientele. In other places, a shop that sold mostly just frilly hats and accessories like hand dyed silk scarves wouldn’t have done well, but Lexington and the Kentucky Derby go hand in hand, and there’s this thing about women in hats at horse races. I guess it’s tradition. I know the stereotype says all gay men are supposed to be into fashion and interior design and stuff, but I’m a clod when it comes to those things. Not that my standards of hygiene or grooming are lacking, but anyone walking into the shop was more likely to assume Owen was the gay man than me.

There was a lull in the early afternoon, and Owen kept the place comfortable. I was a little more tired than I cared to admit, and thinking of a nap, when the bell over the door chimed like the sweetest silver. I didn’t remember a bell going off when anybody else wandered in to admire the finery. The sound was enough to make me glance up to check out the new arrival. The scent of honeysuckle flooded the shop, and after a moment I realized it wasn’t just expensive perfume. I’d smelled plenty of _that_ today.

The beautiful lady who walked toward us smelled like rich earth and the mild spring air mixed with flowers. Her dress looked a little funny to me at first, at least until I realized it wasn’t silk that formed the skirt but the soft petal of some flower that never could have existed. Flowers didn’t come with person-sized petals. Worse, she, she was looking straight at me.

Not much scares me, but something about this lady set a little voice at the back of my mind screaming for retreat. I’m not real comfortable being the subject of female attentions to begin with, and there was something in her gaze that my wolf interpreted as predatory despite her soft appearance. Unfortunately, I was more or less trapped on my stool behind the counter, since it took me a moment to get up with the cane, and my wolf wouldn’t let us back down in the face of a threat, however poorly defined, not after the bridge.

“Peace, Samson Douglas Willoughby. I mean no harm to you.” Her voice made all the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

“Ma’am,” I replied. If I was stuck, my best defense was to be as polite as I could. Owen had gone into the back to check on something, leaving me here on my lonesome. “Um, if you need help with somethin’, I can get the owner for you.”

She laughed and my knees went weak. _My_ knees. If I hadn’t already been sitting, I would have fallen right over. This was so out of my league it wasn’t funny. “Lovely creations,” she murmured, brushing her fingertips against the brim of a hat. “Not the cause for my visit.”

All I could tell about this woman was she wasn’t human, and she had power. I wasn’t real good at sorting out one supernatural critter from another, but the presence of daylight and the outfit and scent said she was probably one of the fae. It was as good a guess as any. Fae meant being real careful with how I worded things or I could find myself in trouble real fast, pack or no pack. Clever words ain’t my strong suit, so I was probably already in trouble. She smiled at me while she stroked the hat. The little birdie on the brim, cleverly fashioned out of feather and Lord only knew what, began to sing.

“You, uh, you’re here to see me?” I ventured, unsure. All I could think was that it might have something to do with Rob, but while Owen claimed Rob was powerful, he didn’t feel anywhere near as scary to me as this lady did. She’d three-named me when she walked into the store, though, and there ain’t many people who can do that.

“My vassal bade me come to you,” the lady replied. Her eyes were wide and innocent looking, excepting for the cat-slit pupils that ran top to bottom. “He is concerned about your care.”

I blinked. "Rob? Rob sent you to check on me?"

She smiled widely. “Mortal children know my servant by that name.”

It was hard to meet her gaze, like staring down an Alpha wolf. I looked away first. "I-I know it ain’t his true name, but it’s the one I know him by." She’d called Rob her vassal, her servant. I’d met a male fae at Rob’s work who’d been serious business, but this lady seemed a hell of a lot scarier for some reason.

“Of course.” Her feet made no noise on the hand scraped cherry I’d installed on the floor. She was just there, touching her hand to my face. “You need not fear me, little wolf.”

Her touch made me freeze. “Ah... Sorry, ma’am, I’ve had a rough couple weeks.”

“My sweet Robin told me of your troubles.”

“He—” I swallowed and felt my face heat. “I wouldn’t be here if not for him.”

She pursed her lips. “He told my lord you had saved him once from mortal peril, and he but returned the favor in kind.”

I opened my mouth to tell her all I’d done was clean up a the damage when Rob had been injured by a steel nail on the job site, but recognized belatedly what he’d done for me. I’d hidden the fact he was fae from my contractors, kept his cover intact, and given him a safe place to rest and regain his strength before he had to face his boss again. I’d seen it as a small thing, certainly not on par with diving into a river to save my sorry ass and then facing down an angry Alpha werewolf, but Rob could spin it that way and call it true. The fae were public, but not all of ’em were out. The fae also couldn’t lie either, so if I disputed his story I could put him in serious danger. If I downplayed what I’d done, it might also put me in debt to the people he answered to, which was a pretty scary prospect.

“A life for a life,” I agreed. “I tried callin’ him once I was home again, to see if he was... To see how things stood between us, but I never got through.”

“Our lord called him into service. I am certain he will return in time.” She cocked her head to the side, and her braided hair fell just so, highlighting the freckles that scattered over her nose. “Tis a dangerous thing to befriend a fae.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am, but you could say the same about befriending a werewolf,” I murmured. Called into service didn’t sound as bad as I’d feared. One of the mixed blessings of the wolf was that I had time. I could wait for Rob to be released from whatever obligation that’d been laid on him.

She smiled and patted my hand. “Time will tell.”

Well then. That wasn’t ominous in the slightest.

“I’m glad to know he’s okay,” I ventured. “I was pretty out of it for awhile, and when I couldn’t get ahold of him afterward, I was a little concerned.”

“He cannot stay with you as he wished. In this, I serve my vassal as his proxy. He bade me tell you his health is good.” The lady studied my face. “He has not taken a one such as you for a pet in my memory. How odd.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about being called anybody’s pet. I didn’t see Rob that way, and I was pretty sure he didn’t see me as some sort of pet, but fae are weird. The only authority I answered to was Alec’s, though that didn’t mean I lacked respect for heavy hitters like this lady. I was really starting to wonder where Owen had gotten to, though. It wasn’t like him to leave me alone for so long.

“You need not stay here, Samson Wiloughby, with these creatures who cause you so much pain.”

Her words made me cock my head in puzzlement, and her naming me brought another edge of unease. “I belong to Alec’s pack now,” I said.

“My Robin sang me a different tune. He told me your choice was not considered in the Alpha’s account,” she murmured.

Technically she was right. I hadn’t been conscious when Alec bound me. “Maybe not, but I wasn’t a lone wolf by choice either. I’ll take the pack, given the option, even if it ain’t sunshine and roses.”

“I can offer you another choice. One where you may be with my sweet Robin.”

It was pretty damn tempting. The problem with fairy bargains is there’s always a catch. It was probably something like never being able to leave again, and much as I liked Rob, I also liked the life I’d built for myself. Rob and I had had a few weeks to get to know each other, and I wasn't ready to give up everything just yet.

“I appreciate the offer, but I can’t. I owe Alec and the pack for puttin’ me back together.”

“Owed debts must be repaid,” she agreed. “Should you change your mind, you have but to ask.”

I nodded slowly. “I’ll remember.”

She laughed, moving toward the door. “Yes, you will.” Sweet tinkling chimes sounded again when she exited the shop. The bird on the hat stopped singing when she left, and I was left alone in sudden quiet. I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

The door into the back exploded off its hinges a half second later, scattering sharp bits of wood all over the floor. Owen, what should have been Owen, stood in the wreckage breathing harder than a winded horse. Little scraps of his shirt and trousers drifted from his cinnamon colored fur down to the floor. It takes most wolves a good fifteen or twenty minutes at least to change forms. Had it really been that long? I’d lost track of time when the fairy lady had stepped into the shop.

Owen growled, moving toward me on stiff legs. I slipped off the stool and went to my knees, even though it hurt to move like that. While I was doing better, I wasn’t in any shape to take on an enraged werewolf, not even Owen, who didn’t rank all that high in the pack.

“It’s all right, Owen, I’m okay,” I told him, keeping my voice low and my gaze down like he’d taught me. “She’s gone, she didn’t hurt me.”

The wolf bared his teeth in a silent snarl. I’ve seen Owen angry plenty of times, being as that’s a hazard of our condition, but there was nothing human behind those bright yellow eyes. If the fairy woman had done something to him, cast a spell or something, I was done for. Maybe if I were up to fighting weight I could take him, but not as I was right then. I crouched lower. I ain’t submissive, but I could force my wolf to pretend if it got Owen to calm down. He took another step toward me and shook himself like his fur was all wet. He didn’t back away, precisely, but something a little more personable than his wolf eased the tight lines of his shoulders into a semblance of thoughtful homicidal rage instead of plain old murder.

“I’m sorry, Owen, she just walked right in like she owned the place. I still ain’t movin’ real fast and I didn’t know where you’d got to.” Owen sniffed the side of my head where she’d patted me. Whatever he found there made him sneeze. I rubbed my cheek where the fairy woman had touched me. I hadn’t felt anything from her at all, but Owen still wasn’t happy. At least he didn’t seem like he was going to go for my throat anymore.

“You mind if I get up?” I asked the wolf. “If you’re gonna be like this for a bit, I oughta lock the door so we don’t have to explain it to any of your customers.” Owen backed away enough to let me climb back to my feet. If it meant I breathed more comfortably, too, I wasn’t gonna point it out.

I snagged my cane from where I’d leaned it against the counter and hobbled across the shop to flip the sign to closed and turn the lock. The last thing we needed was Owen eating some hapless human who stumbled in at the wrong moment. Once the front was secure, I turned to the mess of kindling that was all that remained of the door Owen had destroyed. “What a mess,” I murmured. He’d hit it so hard even the frame was busted. It was gonna take me a couple days to get a replacement ordered and the trim and frame fixed so I could hang it. Owen flicked his ears at the mess.

Since Owen wouldn’t have hands for awhile, I went and snagged a broom and dustpan and started cleaning up the shattered wood. I’d gotten the last few bits by the time the front door unlocked itself and opened. I tensed, on my guard after the encounter with the fairy lady.

“Why does this shop stink like the fae?” the Alpha drawled as he walked in. Alec ain’t quite the cavalry, as such things go, since he’s about as balanced as a level six bubbles off plumb. Most the time, I gather he zips about town in his expensive car looking for places he can get expensive haircuts, eat expensive food, drink expensive liquor, and dally with expensive young ladies. I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful to see him.

“One of them visited while Owen was in the back,” I told him, tilting my chin to flash my throat. I’d been doing an awful lot of submitting today, and my wolf wasn’t happy with it, but I wasn’t about to pick a fight with Alec. “He broke the door after she left.”

Alec looked at me for a long moment. “Weird.” He strolled on over to Owen, cupping his well manicured hand under the wolf’s chin. “Did she want a hat?”

“No, though she complimented them. She wanted to talk to me,” I said.

“She say why?”

I knew better than to lie to another werewolf. “She said she was checking on me as Rob’s proxy. She called him her servant, and...” I wasn’t sure I wanted to add the last part, but Alec needed to know. “She offered to let me come and stay where I could be with him. I turned her down.”

“Did you, now?”

“Yessir.” Alec was a hard one to read, and he was still focused on Owen, not me.

“That’s a relief. Be a bit strange calling up the Marrok to explain why I was submitting the paperwork about losing you before I finish the stuff about adding you to the pack, don’t you think?”

“Ah, yes sir,” I agreed. “I don’t think I’d have liked it if I’d gone with her. I ain’t interested in bein’ anybody’s pet. She was pretty scary.”

“Most fae are, even the ones you date. Maybe especially those ones.”

I felt my face heat. “Rob didn’t seem so much to me, not the way she did.”

“Then he hid it better than most.”

“I suppose so,” I allowed, rubbing the back of my neck. “I got the impression I won’t be seein’ him again for awhile. She told me her lord had called him to service, whatever that means.”

“Ah, well. Gives you more time to date other people,” he said cheerfully. “No girl like a rebound girl, or so I’m told. I imagine that applies to men, too.”

“I guess it would,” I agreed. I wasn’t sure I wanted to date anybody else, or anybody at all for a while, anyway. Life was too complicated already. Alec straightened with a sigh, keeping his hand atop Owen’s head.

“No sense in staying here.”

“Yessir,” I said, tightening my grip on my cane. Actually having an Alpha was an odd feeling, and Alec was nothing like what I’d imagined. Twice, now, I’d woken up in his house after someone’d done their level best to kill me, but until today I don’t think I’d exchanged more than a dozen words with the man. I followed when Alec led Owen from the shop, the wolf at his heel as docile as a golden retriever. Getting the three of us into the Alpha’s ridiculous car was an experience I didn’t care to repeat, but Alec made it happen. At least there was a marginal back seat for him to stuff Owen into. I’ve seen him drive around in a two-seater before that’s an absolute nightmare, for all that it’s pretty.

I hunched in a passenger seat designed for someone a good bit smaller than me, and Owen rode with his head on my shoulder. Had it been any other wolf, I might have been worried to have those teeth so near my throat, but Owen was my friend, and much calmer in the Alpha’s presence. I wasn’t sure where Alec would take us, since Owen was my minder and currently stuck as a wolf. He’d be able to change back in a few hours at most, but he was gonna be hungry and cranky in the meantime. It wasn’t much of a surprise to find we were on the road out of town, heading to the Alpha’s big plantation.

I kept my unease to myself as much as I could. Alec’s home always meant some of the pack would be around, and some of ’em hated me more than others. My bum leg was likely to make me more of a target than usual, too. Any demonstrated weakness could be cause for an attack.

“If they attack you, they die,” Alec said casually, throwing the car into one of those too fast hairpin turns at the juncture of two roads.

My wolf was happy to have an Alpha, but did he have to be so damn blunt? “I’d really rather nobody else died on account of me,” I replied. “I don’t even have a proper rank yet.” And I wouldn't until my bones finished mending. After that, anybody could challenge me to a dominance fight and do their level best to pound the snot out of me.

He laughed. “Don’t you worry, they’ll be coming out of the rafters to show you where they sit.” Alec gave me a sly look when he should have been looking at the road. “Once I let them.”

I braced myself against the door when he took another sharp turn a little too quick for my liking. A car crash wouldn’t kill us, most likely, but it wouldn’t do my still-healing bones much good either. “Sooner or later, I s’pose you’ll have to.” My wolf wanted to know where we stood, too.

“Start with Owen. He likes you, so he won’t try to kill you. Much.”

The wolf leaning on my shoulder huffed. I reached up to scratch his ears. Part of me didn’t want to think about taking Owen or anyone else on in a dominance challenge, but that was conditioning I would have to break if I was going to survive as part of the pack. The Alpha let me think the rest of the way to the farmhouse.

I pried myself out of the sports car after Alec brought it to a stop in front of the house, and moved the seat so Owen could squeeze his bulk out after me. The tiny back seat couldn’t have been comfortable for him, but the wolf hadn’t complained about it. I debated leaving the cane behind, but I walked better with it, even if it advertised my injuries. At least with the cane I could keep pace with Owen to follow Alec inside.

Given the incident with the scary fairy lady, I’d expected more questions from Alec, but he didn’t seem to take it all that seriously. I don’t think he ever takes much of anything seriously. Since I’d never had an Alpha before, I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Even knowing there were other werewolves lurking nearby with my death on their minds, I didn’t feel so scared as I used to. I had a pack, a purpose, maybe even a friend. I could get by until I could thank Rob properly for what he’d done.

Alec nudged one of his pet St. Bernards out of the room, and turned back to look at me. “Why don’t you take Owen to the kitchen and feed him steak so he’ll quit eyeballing my dogs? And if anyone bothers you, they answer to me.” He smiled as he spoke, and I nodded in agreement. Somehow I knew this time, at least, he was serious. Old fae and Alpha wolves are both possessive critters, but Alec had won this tug of war, so maybe a little gloating was deserved, even if I’d been the bone between them.

Debts must be repaid, she’d said. Well, I had plenty to balance out, especially if I didn’t want all of Rob’s efforts and Alec’s to keep me alive to be for nothing. I could wait for Rob, but in the meantime I owed it to myself to find my footing with the pack and be the best wolf I could, and try not to get killed in the process.

Owen nudged my thigh with a brawny shoulder, as if sensing my line of thought, and I smiled and sank my fingers into the wolf’s ruff.

“C’mon, you heard our Alpha. Let’s go eat.”

 

* * *

 

Fin... For now

 


End file.
